Negotiations between the Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association and the LPGA Tour over entry quotas for the BMW Ladies Championship have collapsed.
The KLPGA announced Thursday that talks had failed to produce a final agreement despite 16 rounds of meetings held over roughly eight months, beginning with an in-person session with the LPGA Tour in October last year.
The central sticking point was the number of KLPGA Tour players to be included in the field. The KLPGA held firm on its minimum requirement of 30 KLPGA players — the threshold needed for a tournament to count as an official KLPGA event. The association said it was prepared to fully accept the LPGA's requests on all other major issues, including the tournament schedule, operational format, broadcast rights and co-hosting arrangements, but would not budge on the player quota.
The LPGA submitted a final proposal capping KLPGA Tour players at 10 for this year's event. That figure fell short of the 30-player minimum required for the tournament's results to be reflected in KLPGA official records — including prize money rankings and tour points — ending any prospect of a deal.
The KLPGA rejected the proposal to protect the interests of its players and said it would instead stage its own separate tournament during the same week as the BMW Ladies Championship.
The association said the LPGA's offer failed to adequately reflect the standing of Korean women's golf, past precedent or the standards set by co-hosted events in other countries.
At the CJ Nine Bridges Classic in 2003, 14 KLPGA players competed, and roughly a dozen participated in the LPGA Hana Bank Championship in the mid-2000s. As recently as 2019 and 2021, 30 KLPGA players took part in the BMW Ladies Championship.
By comparison, the Toto Japan Classic — currently co-hosted with the LPGA Tour — features 35 domestic players in a field of 78, while the Blue Bay LPGA in China includes 37 local players out of 108.
sports@heraldcorp.com
