Kohjiro Kinno

The LPGA Tour finally reached the continental U.S. last week after a season opener in Hawaii and then a road trip through Thailand, Singapore and Mexico. The weather at the J Golf Phoenix LPGA International mirrored the general mood on tour: sunny, with occasional gusts of concern. "It's nice to be back home," said the hottest American player, Angela Stanford, but the good vibes transcend geography. So far this year the LPGA has been buoyed by a steady stream of good news, and the Phoenix event, at which Karrie Webb triumphed by three shots, was a case in point. Only two months ago the tournament was flailing for a sponsor and a host course, after Safeway terminated its longtime support and Superstition Mountain Golf Club was placed in receivership. J Golf, a division of the JoongAng Broadcasting Corporation (JBC), came on board as part of a blockbuster deal that secured the LPGA's Korean television rights beginning next year, and a credible venue was found in Papago Golf Course, a beloved muni with a picturesque setting at the base of some dramatic red-rock buttes.

"I don't have the vocabulary to express how important this tournament was," says commissioner Carolyn Bivens. "It was a major gut check for the LPGA. To have pulled this off bodes very well for the long-term success of the tournament and, I think, the tour as a whole."

"It was a pretty great save," says Morgan Pressel, "but we have to keep working at it. The frustrating thing is that the LPGA product is the best it's ever been, but the overall economy is so bad we're struggling to capitalize."

That's the perception, but the tour has been steadily landing deals. Last week the LPGA announced a three-year pact for a new official wireless phone company: VTech will buy TV ads on tournament telecasts and space on lpga.com. It's not a game-changer, but these days any new revenue stream is welcome. The players are also cashing in on their crossover appeal. Natalie Gulbis is currently one of the stars on NBC's Celebrity Apprentice. One of women's golf's liveliest personalities, Christina Kim, has secured a contract with Bloomsbury USA to write a diary of the 2009 season to be published next spring. (The book will be coauthored by this correspondent.) Last week second-year tour player and part-time model Anna Rawson was introduced as a new spokesperson for godaddy.com, the Internet domain registrar that has created a certain amount of buzz with racy advertising campaigns featuring Danica Patrick. Publicizing Rawson's abundant charms should help attract a few more eyeballs for the tour, but just as significant as the deal itself was the splashy press conference at Papago that trumpeted it. The LPGA has long had a policy precluding players from holding self-promoting pressers at tournament sites, but that rule was struck down by a reorganized communications department that has already proved to be nimbler and more big picture than its predecessors. Example B of such revamped thinking: a recently enacted policy credentialing lowly bloggers at tournament media centers.

It's nice of the LPGA to encourage the written word, but better TV exposure is the key to its growth. The most significant macrodevelopment so far this season was last month's announcement of a 10-year deal for Golf Channel to become the tour's exclusive domestic cable home beginning in 2010. Two of the three tournaments before Papago had no TV coverage in the U.S.: the Honda LPGA Thailand, at which Lorena Ochoa shot a rousing final-round 66 for a comeback victory; and the MasterCard Classic two weeks ago in Mexico City, which featured a bang-bang finish in which Ochoa, the national sweetheart, came up a shot short of Pat Hurst in front of raucous galleries. Considering that Mexico City is in the same time zone as Denver, Bivens concedes, "That was a missed opportunity for the tour." One that presumably will not be repeated in the future, since Golf Channel will be contractually obligated to televise at least five international events a year.