Sherri Steinhauer Wins The Weetabix Women’s British Open, Qualifies For The ADT Championship
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Aug. 7, 2006 – The renaissance of the LPGA’s veteran players continued over the past weekend as 21-year LPGA professional Sherri Steinhauer qualified for the ADT Championship by virtue of Sunday’s victory at the Weetabix Women’s British Open. Half of the elite 32-player field is set for the ADT Championship, which is Nov. 16-19 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla.
With her seventh LPGA victory in the bag, Steinhauer, 43, joins an illustrious group in the field for the ADT Championship, the concluding event in the LPGA’s inaugural playoff system. That illustrious field includes Annika Sorenstam, Se Ri Pak, Karrie Webb and Brittany Lincicome – all of whom either won majors or Winner Events in the first half of the LPGA Playoffs 2006 – as well as first-half ADT Points qualifiers Lorena Ochoa, Mi Hyun Kim, Cristie Kerr, Juli Inkster, Seon Hwa Lee, Hee-Won Han, Jeong Jang, Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, Pat Hurst and Meena Lee.
Steinhauer, whose 7-under-par 281 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club was highlighted by a six-under-par 66 in the third round that put her in the lead for good, joins Sorenstam, Webb and Pak as this year’s major winners. All have played on the LPGA since at least 1998.
It was Steinhauer’s second major victory (also winning the 1992 du Maurier Ltd. Classic) and only her second LPGA win since the 1999 British Open. She won consecutive British Opens in 1998 (held at Royal Lytham & St. Annes) and 1999 but the tournament was not recognized as an LPGA major until 2001.
"I feel like I’m living in a dream. This is incredible for me," said Steinhauer, who jumped 46 places to No. 20 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings and moved up eight spots to No. 15 on the ADT Official Money List in becoming the second-oldest winner of a LPGA major. "I was extremely nervous at the beginning of the day. I wanted it bad. It just means so much for me to win it as a major. Juli (Inkster) gave me a hug before I started and wished me luck and I wished her luck. Us old fogeys have to stick together."
Winners of major events on the 2006 LPGA Tour schedule automatically secure a spot for the season-ending event, which features the first-ever $1 million winner’s paycheck on the LPGA. The remaining LPGA members finishing in the top-20 (including ties) receive double points toward the race to secure one of the 14 remaining spots in the second half of the LPGA Playoffs 2006 season, which wraps up Nov. 12 at the conclusion of The Mitchell Company LPGA Tournament of Champions presented by Kathy Ireland Worldwide.
Between now and then, two more golfers can qualify for the ADT Championship via victories from two Winner Events (Samsung World Championship and The Mitchell Company LPGA Tournament of Champions presented by Kathy Ireland Worldwide). Another Winner Event qualification into the ADT Championship will be awarded to the player earning the most combined ADT points from a trio of Global Group Events – the Honda LPGA Thailand 2006, the CJ Nine Bridges Classic presented by SEMA Sports and the Mizuno Classic.
All point totals were cleared prior to the Evian Masters, which began the second half of the LPGA Playoffs 2006 chase and a race for 15 second-half spots into the ADT Championship. Two additional players will qualify via wildcards to round out the 32-player field. The wildcards will go to the top two players from the ADT Official Money List on Oct. 15 (before the Global Group events) who are not otherwise qualified.
The ADT Championship will be played in the following format (a sudden-death playoff will be used at the end of each round in the event of a tie): the first cut will be after 36 holes to 16 players; the second cut will be after 54 holes to eight players (scores are cumulative through 54 holes). The final round will be played in four groups of two, with all players starting with a fresh scorecard. Whoever shoots the lowest score in the final round will win the ADT Championship and $1 million.
In addition to Steinhauer, the following players would be eligible to qualify for the ADT Championship based on the accumulation of second-half ADT points (through the Weetabix Women’s British Open):
Sophie Gustafson 46
Lorie Kane 32
Candie Kung 32
Laura Davies 32
Beth Daniel 30
Karine Icher 28
Julieta Granada 26
Ai Miyazato 24
Nina Reis 22
Joo Mi Kim 22
Karen Stupples 22
Heather Young 20
Wendy Ward 10
Il Mi Chung 10
About ADT
Celebrating its 131st anniversary, ADT Security Services, a unit of Tyco Fire & Security, is the largest provider of electronic security services to more than six million commercial, government and residential customers throughout North America. ADT’s total security solutions include intrusion, fire protection, closed circuit television, access control, critical condition monitoring, electronic article surveillance, radio frequency identification (RFID) and integrated systems.
About IMG
IMG is the world’s premier Sports, Entertainment and Media Company. IMG is a diversified global business with two major business segments: IMG Sports & Entertainment, and IMG Media. IMG employs over 2,300 people in 30 countries. Forstmann Little & Co. purchased IMG in 2004.
IMG Sports & Entertainment includes: consulting services; event ownership and management; fashion events and models representation; licensing; golf course design; client representation in golf, tennis, broadcasting, European football, rugby, cricket, motorsports, coaching, Olympic sports and action sports. In addition, IMG Academies are the world’s largest and most advanced, state-of-the-art, multi-sport training and educational facility, delivering world-class sports training experiences to over 12,000 junior, collegiate, adult and professional athletes each year.
IMG Media, which includes our content production subsidiaries TWI and Darlow Smithson Productions, is recognized as a global leader in the delivery of traditional and new media content and services, with Internet, broadband and mobile expertise, transforming how audiences access and interact with content. IMG Media produces and distributes over 9,000 hours of sports, documentary, docu-drama, entertainment, and popular factual content annually, over multiple platforms across 200 countries, including award-winning television and radio programming. It also represents the broadcast rights to many of the world’s premier sporting events and has the world’s biggest sports archive with more than 200,000 hours of footage.
More information about IMG is available at www.imgworld.com and www.darlowsmithson.com
About Ladies Professional Golf Association
Featuring the world’s best women golfers, the LPGA’s membership includes touring, teaching and club professionals. The LPGA Tour in 2006 features 34 events, with total prize money of nearly $50 million. Since 1981, the LPGA and its tournaments have raised approximately $170 million for charity. From the dreams of its 13 founders in 1950, the LPGA has evolved into the world’s preeminent women’s professional sports organization. The LPGA has grown from its roots as a playing tour into a non-profit organization involved in every facet of golf. In addition to the LPGA Tour members, the LPGA membership includes nearly 1,200 certified Teaching and Club Professionals (T&CP) who serve the golf industry in teaching, coaching and management positions. The LPGA T&CP member programs focus on increasing the involvement of women, girls and youth in golf, as well as contribute to the growth of the sport overall. The LPGA is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Fla. For more information on the LPGA, log on to www.LPGA.com.
Contact:
Steve Brener/Brian Robin/Damian Secore
Brener Zwikel & Associates, Inc.
(818) 344-6195, Ext. 103 /110/114
