In just three months, the Coachella Valley’s newest professional golf tournament will come to town.
That will be the Epson Tour Championship, the season finale for the LPGA’s developmental tour. At the end of the 72-hole tournament at the Indian Wells Golf Resort, 15 golfers will have earned at least some playing privileges on the LPGA for 2025.
Followers of the LPGA may have some understanding of the Epson Tour and what it offers, but casual golf fans might not know much about the developmental tour. Here are some important points as the Tour Championship is less than 100 days away on Oct. 3-6.
It’s an international tour
Jessica Porvasnik (right) discusses strategy with caddie Sam Geise on the 10th tee during the final round of the Epson Tour’s Atlantic Beach Classic on March 23, 2024, at the Atlantic Beach Country Club in Neptune Beach, Fla.
Yes, it is based in the United States, but so is the LPGA itself, and the LPGA features top women players from around the world. The same is true of the Epson Tour. Of the top 15 players at the top of the Race for the Card at the moment, only five are from the United States. The top two players in that chase right now, Fiona Xu and Cassie Porter, are both from New Zealand, a country growing in importance in women’s golf. Other countries represented in the top 15 at the moment are Taiwan, China, South Korea, South Africa, Colombia, the Netherlands and Slovenia.
The tour is in its final chase for 2024
Karen Chung of Budd Lake, N.J. tees off during the final round of the Epson Tour’s Atlantic Beach Classic on March 23, 2024 at the Atlantic Beach Country Club in Neptune Beach, Fla.
The Epson Tour has played 11 tournaments so far this year, meaning there are only seven regular season events remaining before the Tour Championship in Indian Wells. The Epson golfers will play twice in July, twice in August and three times in September. Those final tournaments will take golfers across the country, with starts in Connecticut, New York, Oregon and Indiana before two starts in Alabama.
There are past LPGA players nearing a return
Kim Kaufman at the Four Winds Invitational at Blackthorn in South Bend, Indiana. (Tribune photo/Matt Cashore)
The Epson Tour is not just about college players looking for their first taste of professional golf or international players looking to break through in the United States. Just like on the PGA Tour with the Korn Ferry Tour, there are golfers who are working on the Epson Tour to…
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