The American Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has announced the LPGA eTour Live, an online tournament featuring professional LPGA Tour and Symetra Tour golfers.
Professional players will compete in a four-week tournament in the online golf game World Golf Tour (WGT) by Topgolf, with the first match commencing today.
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Brian Carroll, LPGA Senior Vice President of Global Media Distribution, commented on the LPGA eTour Live in a release: “We are excited for this partnership with WGT and Topgolf to present an entertaining and alternative golf experience for all fans alike during a time when many are starved for competition. This new endeavor is a creative way to showcase our LPGA and Symetra Tour players in an innovative online format, thanks to WGT and its incredibly realistic video game technology.”
the initial match featured sisters Jessica Korda and Nelly Korda – both of which are LPGA pros – while upcoming matches will feature the following golfers: Angel Yin, Lizette Salas, Jenny Shin, Tiffany Joh, Lucy Li, and Jane Park. Golf Channel and GOLFTV commentators will cast the matches.
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The winners of the matches will compete in semifinals in late May ahead of the championship match on June 3rd. All matches will stream live via numerous accounts, including both the WGT’s and LPGA’s respective Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook channels, as well as LPGA.com and GOLFTV’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Lincoln Silver, Vice President of Business Development for Topgolf Media, added: “With a heightened focus on offering innovative, virtual entertainment and bringing people together during this time, WGT is honored to partner with the LPGA to present these live eTour events. WGT’s ability to provide the best esports golfing platform combined with the LPGA’s unique series of competitions will create a powerful experience for players all over the world who can truly immerse themselves in the competition.”
Esports Insider says: Nearly every significant sports league is looking at esports to fill the programming void right now due to the pandemic, and the LPGA is no different. With so many different streaming channels for this event, it’ll be interesting to see how many eyes they pull into this offering.