Who killed the Dinah Shore?
The premier Championship in women’s golf was just unceremoniously changed forever. Why?
In 1972, Singer, TV personality, and avid golfer Dinah Shore originated an LPGA event, then called the “Colgate-Dinah Shore Winners Circle Tournamentat” at Mission Hills Country Club in California, as a way to help bolster the women’s game.
Jane Blalock won the first Dinah Shore tournament and earned $20,000 for her victory, which was $15,000 more than any other LPGA tournament winner was awarded that year.
Shore used her Hollywood glamour to put women’s golf in the spotlight for the first time, attracting celebrity cameos, media attention, and becoming one of the few LPGA events broadcast on television. “Sometimes in sports there is a defining moment,” Blalock told the “Los Angeles Times” in 2011. “That moment for us was 40 years ago” at Dinah Shore's tournament.
Quickly embraced by all, the tournament evolved with many name changes over the years but always kept the legacy and spirit of the tournament alive.
Upgraded to a major championship in 1983, and with the iconic celebratory leap into Poppie’s Pond started by Amy Alcott, the Championship became a truly original jewel in the crown of women’s golf.
Similar to the Masters tournament at Augusta National, Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage became a home to the LPGA, it was the one major championship that aspiring young women could watch year after year on the same course, and imagine themselves winning in order to make that iconic leap.
As a fan of golf and women’s golf in particular for over 15 years, the Dinah Shore at Mission Hills quickly became my favorite event.
Each year it felt like a warm welcome return to major championship golf. I came to know and appreciate each hole at mission hills, and could tell you stories about each one. I saw some of the greatest triumphs and most crushing defeats in golf I have witnessed, on this storied golf course.
To me it came to represent the pinnacle of the game, with performances undoubtedly at the highest level imaginable, and with an enveloping history you couldn’t help but appreciate.
So it felt like a crushing blow when I first heard that the Dinah Shore(now Chevron Championship), the Championship at Mission Hills with a 50 year legacy and pedigree unmatched in women’s golf would be unceremoniously changed forever.
The announcement, that the championship had a new sponsor, Chevron, and that the title sponsor had made the decision to move the championship from Mission Hills, to Texas starting in 2023, and from the first calendar major in golf to a later date in order to secure an air time commitment from NBC.
The news left me reeling with questions I never anticipated asking.
It truly felt like the end of an era and the death of something great held dearly by everyone involved.
So who killed the Dinah Shore?
Was it the PGA tour which insisted on playing an event the same week as the Dinah Shore every year?
Was it perhaps most egregiously Augusta National, who introduced a competing amateur event to be held every year on the same date as the Dinah Shore, advertised as a first glimpse of the most fascinating course in the world to American viewers. Simultaneously forcing amateur golfers to make the heart wrenching decision wether to play in the most iconic tournament the women’s game had to offer, or to take perhaps their only chance to ever play on the most iconic golf course in America.
Was it NBC who seemed unwilling to give the championship the spotlight it so clearly deserved as a result?
Or was it a tour and sponsor seemingly willfully oblivious to the history and legacy of the championship?
Whatever the contributing factors, it feels like the death of the championship is placed firmly at the feet of the golfing world’s unwillingness to equally recognize, respect, or celebrate women’s contribution to the game.
Can we imagine a reality in which the world of golf would accept a rename and relocation of the Masters or the Players championship?
The whole golfing world grinds to a halt Masters week in order to watch the best of the men’s game take on the most prestigious event on the men’s roster, is it so crazy to wonder why the same treatment isn’t awarded to the best the women’s game has to offer?
Why can’t the the world of golf come together for one week to celebrate women?
Why are the great institutions and legacies of women’s golf seen purely as transactional and expendable, while the men’s are not?
I’m left wondering who this decision benefits? Does it benefit the fans? The players? How about young women learning the game? I don’t see how this decision benefits any of us.
And as a fan of the game, I am left feeling defeated.
I feel I cannot in good conscience watch or enjoy The Masters this year as it would be like rewarding an accomplice to the death of a great institution.
I also will not be able to support the future iterations of the Chevron Championship until it is returned to its rightful home.
I am hopeful that in the future this great championship will return to Mission Hills, and that the golfing world will give the women of this great game the respect that they not only deserve but have so rightfully fought for.
But for now I am left nostalgic for championships past, and disappointed in the golfing world’s present.
