LPGA’s first major, in Rancho Mirage, celebrates Its 50th

Known today as the ANA Inspiration, after All Nippon Airways took over sponsorship in 2015.

The Rancho Mirage event is again the first major of the year when its 50th edition tees off Thursday morning, after being shifted to September last year because of COVID-19.

The ANA Inspiration

The ANA Inspiration is one of the five Major championships of professional women’s golf. It’s an event on the LPGA Tour, and is held yearly at the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California.

The tournament is not only is celebrating its 50th Anniversary of the event in 2021 but it has also returned to being the first Major of the year!

The women’s event was known as the Colgate-Dinah Shore when it began in 1972, as a collaboration between the famed entertainer and Colgate-Palmolive chairman David Foster, and it became an LPGA major in 1983.

One again there will be no fans, and the normally full grandstand flanking the 18th green has been replaced by a tribute wall saluting the tournament’s previous winners.

The champion will still leap into Poppie’s Pond and the Golf Channel will still record it.

With eight of the top 10 players in the world finishing inside the top 10 at last week’s Kia Classic, expectations are high that the year’s first major could be an absolute thriller.

Players say they’ve never seen Mission Hill’s Dinah Shore Tournament Course in such pristine condition. It’s firm and fast and increasingly warm here in the desert.

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