20-player elite field event has desert home for fourth consecutive year
PALM DESERT, Calif. – The Samsung World Championship, which features an elite, 20-player field, will return to BIGHORN Golf Club’s Canyons Course, Oct. 11-14, 2007, it was announced.
The agreement, a one-year deal, returns the prestigious event to the Coachella Valley for a fourth year. It has been played on five continents in 26 years.
"We have enjoyed three wonderful years at BIGHORN Golf Club and we are delighted to be returning for the 2007 Samsung World Championship," said Mark Steinberg, senior vice president, global managing director, IMG. "We have contested the Championship on some of the world’s finest courses, and the Canyons course at BIGHORN has proven to be a spectacular venue for the world’s top players."
"We are excited to have the Samsung World Championship returning to BIGHORN Golf club in 2007," said R.D. Hubbard, president of BIGHORN. "It has been an honor to have partnered with Mr. Oh and his incredible Samsung organization, along with IMG, who has organized this prestigious event at BIGHORN for the past three years. We are looking forward with great anticipation to another memorable championship in 2007."
Mexican superstar Lorena Ochoa won the 2006 Samsung World Championship, upstaging two-time defending champion and five-time winner Annika Sorenstam by firing a seven-under-par 65 in the final round to edge Sorenstam by two strokes and capture the crystal trophy. The 24-year-old Ochoa shot 67-73-67-65—272, erasing a three-shot deficit heading into the final round and taking home a check worth $218,750 out of the total purse of $875,000. Her victory at the Samsung World Championship was her second straight win and her fifth of the 2006 season, more than any LPGA player this year.
A 72-hole, stroke play event, the Samsung World Championship field includes the winners of the four LPGA majors – the Kraft Nabisco Championship, McDonald’s LPGA championship, the U.S. Women’s Open, and the Weetabix Women’s British Open. It also includes the previous year’s Vare Trophy winner, the defending champion and the LPGA tour’s leading money winner of the current year.
A berth in the field also is awarded by the Championship selection committee to the leading player from the Ladies European Tour (LET). Rounding out the field are other leading money winners from the LPGA Tour’s current year and one sponsor invitation.
Past winners of the Championship include some of the finest players in the world: Beth Daniel (1980, ’81 and ’94), JoAnne Carner (1982, ’83), Nancy Lopez (1984), Amy Alcott (1985), Pat Bradley (1986), Ayako Okamoto (1987), Rosie Jones (1988), Betsy King (1989), Cathy Gerring (1990), Meg Mallon (1991), Dottie Pepper (1993), Se Ri Pak (1999), Juli Inkster (1997, ’98 and 2000), Dorothy Delasin (2001), Sorenstam (1995, ’96, 2002, ’04, ’05), Sophie Gustafson (2003) and Ochoa (2006).
About Samsung
Samsung is a world leader in electronics, finance, and trade and services. Headquartered in Korea, Samsung operates 337 offices and facilities in 58 different countries. The company employs approximately 222,000 people worldwide, with 2004 net sales of US $121.7 billion.
Samsung believes that sports play a unique role in unifying people regardless of age, race, or gender. Samsung is a passionate supporter and active corporate sponsor of amateur and professional sporting events, training programs, teams and individual athletes in Korea and around the world.
The company extended its commitment to sports by becoming a worldwide Olympic Partner of the International Olympic Committee in 1997. Samsung’s official Olympic Games partnership will continue with the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
For more information, please visit our website: www.samsung.com.
About BIGHORN Golf Club
BIGHORN Golf Club, a private club, offers its members two spectacular golf courses. The CANYONS Course, designed by Tom Fazio, will provide a challenge for the world’s best lady golfers. The par-72, 7,083 yard Tom Fazio layout, is set among rock-studded canyons, copper foothills, meandering streams, majestic waterfalls, and rich desert flora. The back nine is located in the upper elevations, with many holes nestled along a natural desert wash and into the existing canyons of the Santa Rosa Mountains. The course was opened in December 1998 and hosted the BATTLE AT BIGHORN in 2000-2001-2002.
BIGHORN is also home to the Arthur Hills-designed MOUNTAINS Course, a par-72, 6,871-yard breath-taking course winding through the foothills and valleys of the Santa Rosa Mountains providing panoramic vistas of Palm Desert and the entire Coachella Valley. The MOUNTAINS Course has been home to THE SKINS GAME from 1992-1995 and also host to the 1998 World Senior Match Play Challenge.
For a private tour, contact BIGHORN Properties at 800-551-5578.
Contact:
Toby Zwikel/Brian Robin/Damian Secore
Brener Zwikel & Associates, Inc.
(818) 344-6195 ext. 104/110/114