So just what is the Epson Tour Championship and why is it here in the desert this week?
Even for some hardcore golf fans, the Epson Tour is not a common name. With the tour in the desert for its final stop of the 2024 season, and with the event sponsored by the City of Indian Wells, this is a chance to learn about the Epson Tour and the role it plays in women’s golf.
The Epson Tour is the developmental tour for the LPGA, much as the Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental tour for the PGA. With a full schedule of 19 events, the idea of the Epson Tour is to give professional golfers a path to reach the LPGA.
At the end of the week, 15 golfers will be awarded playing privileges for the 2025 season through a ranking of points earned. The top 10 players receive one kind of status for 2025, and the next five gain a slightly different status for next year.
The tournament will run Thursday through Sunday at the Indian Wells Golf Resort, and the event might be a path for Indian Wells to make a pitch for the LPGA to come back to the desert after leaving after 2022 following a run of 51 years in Rancho Mirage.
Here are some things to know about the Epson Tour Championship this week:
The field is set
While the chase is for the top 15 on the points list to earn an LPGA exemption for 2025, this is still a tournament with golfers looking to win the title and the first-place check. The championship features 108 golfers playing for a purse of $287,500. First prize in the event is $43,125, with the winner also receiving 650 points toward the LPGA card. Considering that the 15th spot in the season-long rankings entering the tournament has just 908 points, you can see what a difference the 650 points for the win could make for a player and how important it is just to be in the field this week.
Some spots are already secured
The top 15 players in the points after Sunday’s play will earn an LPGA exemption for 2025, but five of those spots have already been mathematically secured. Lauren Stephenson tops the points list starting the week just ahead of Yahui Zhang of China. Others who have already secured a spot on the LPGA Tour in 2025 include Fatima Fernandez Cano of Spain, and Americans Jessica Porvasnik and Brooke Matthews, who secured her card in the most recent Epson event in Arkansas. That was the 18th tournament of the year for the Epson Tour and was won by Jenny Bae, who spent time in the desert last winter with LPGA Hall of Famer Juli Inkster at Tradition Golf Club as the winner of the Inkster Award for four-year seniors in college. Bae is seventh in the rankings.
The course has changed
The Players Course at the Indian Wells Golf Resort, the host course for the Epson Tour this week, will undergo major renovations starting next spring, renovations that will re-route the golf course and eliminate the current 17th and 18th holes entirely. But for this week, problems of a front nine that doesn’t come back to the clubhouse and an 18th hole that is separated from the rest of the golf course by the Renaissance hotel will be handled differently. The course is simply being re-routed, with the current 18th hole becoming the 10th hole for the week and the eighth hole becoming the 18th hole. It shouldn’t be a problem for the golfers in the championship, most of whom have never seen the golf course before.
Familiar names
Fans of the LPGA will recognize some familiar names from past seasons in the Epson Tour Championship in Indian Wells this week. Those include Pornanong Phatlum of Thailand, who joined the LPGA in 2009 and has 30 career top-10 finishes on the big tour. Phatlum is 13th in the points entering the Epson Tour Championship. In 14th is Kim Kaufman, who was an LPGA rookie in 2014. She has 12 top-10 finishes on the LPGA and is looking to return to the big tour again.
First Tee participation
Like most professional tournaments in the desert, the Epson Tour Championship has found a way for the event to incorporate the First Tee of the Coachella Valley into the activities. A junior clinic will be held on Saturday benefiting the local First Tee chapter. In addition, First Tee participants will also have the opportunity to serve as standard bearers on Saturday and Sunday.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Epson Tour Championship in Indian Wells is path to LPGA career
