The first major in professional golf will have a new identity and a new home, as, in 2022, the LPGA Tour major now known as the ANA Inspiration will become the Chevron Championship.
The California-based oil company has signed on to become the title sponsor of the 50-year-old major championship, one of five on the LPGA Tour schedule. Starting next year, the purse will increase from $3.1 million to $5 million, elevating the old Dinah Shore to a similar purse as the other majors on the schedule.
The tournament will also move away from its traditional early April date to later in the spring. With the advent of the Augusta National Women's Amateur and the club scheduling it the weekend prior to the Masters Tournament -- the same weekend -- the tournament was forced to confront scheduling realities and move.
With the move, however, the Chevron Championship will now air on NBC, whereas it had been exclusively on Golf Channel in the past.
The upgrade, however, comes with a break in tradition. After 2022, the Chevron Championship will no longer be played at Mission Hills Country Club, the California ancestral home of the tournament. This was the only major to have been held on the same course every year, drawing comparisons to the Masters for that and the traditions that came out of that, including the winner jumping in Poppie's Pond alongside the island-green par-5 18th hole.
However, the event had seen decreased local support and attendance in recent years.
The tournament will likely be moving to a Houston-area home course in 2023, with a future home that's still to be announced. Natural fits could include Champions Golf Club, which was host to the 2020 US Women's Open and past home of the PGA Tour's Tour Championship, as well as the former Houston Open host, the Country Club of Houston, and Bluejack National, which is Tiger Woods' first full-length course design in the United States.
The event will create a special Player Advisory Board to help ensure that the tournament is honoring its past history and continues to improve for the modern players competing in the event.
