BETHESDA, Md. – Cristie Kerr calls Congressional’s renovated Blue Course one of the best she’s ever played. As LPGA players drive courtesy Cadillacs this week, dine in a gargantuan clubhouse – complete with sugar cookies shaped like the Washington Monument – and compete for a $9 million purse, double last year’s at the KPMG Women’s PGA, Stacy Lewis has a message: “In our history of the LPGA, this is far from normal.”
The LPGA was in grave peril when Lewis joined more than a dozen years ago. There were 23 events on the schedule, and nearly half of them were overseas.
“This current group of players, I don’t think they quite realize how lucky we are with the opportunities that we have,” said Lewis. “I mean, they have come to expect them over the last four or five years, that this setup this week is normal.”
