Commercial realities hit hard for NZ Women’s Open

The immediate, and perhaps long-term, future of the NZ Women’s Golf Open looks to be on shaky ground following confirmation from NZ Golf that the tournament was being placed on “indefinite hiatus”.

The NZ Women’s Golf Open was established in 2009 and co-sanctioned a year later by the Ladies European Tour and won by Laura Davies.

Brooke Henderson with the 2017 NZ Women’s Open trophy (Credit: PhotoSport)

New Zealand’s former World No.1, Lydia Ko, won the title three times between 2013 and 2016 while Canadian superstar Brooke Henderson is the current title holder having secured the trophy when it was last played in 2017 as an LPGA event with a nearly $2 million purse.

NZ Golf has confirmed there are currently no firm plans to bring back the tournament following South Korean title sponsor McKayson pulling out of a three-year deal and sinking any hope of staging the 2018 and 2019 events.

“Sadly for now the NZ Women’s Golf remains on indefinite hiatus,” said New Zealand Golf CEO, Dean Murphy.

“We are working really hard to bring the tournament back, but at this stage we have no projection of when it might be. We’d like it back on the calendar as soon as possible.”

“The commercial reality makes it very difficult, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible or we’ll stop trying. It’s just at the moment it is a work-on and we don’t have a definitive path forward. We just need to keep working on it and hopefully we can bring it back to the schedule soon.”