The TLPGA Tour has hit a milestone as the Tour will be co-hosting with the Symetra Tour the 8th annual Florida’s Natural Charity Classic at the Lake Wales Country Club. TLPGA members will now have the chance to take a 2-tournament tune-up before making their way to the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic.


It marks the first TLPGA Tour event co-sanctioned with the developmental tour to the LPGA Tour, dubbed the “Road to the LPGA”. From this Friday to Sunday, a field of 156 players, including 15 Taiwanese players, will be vying for a purse of US$175,000, the biggest in tournament history, and the champion will walk away with a US$26,250 check. Lin Tzu-Chi (林子麒) of Taiwan won here back in 2011 and is searching for a repeat.

Following this week’s Florida’s Natural Charity Classic, the Chico’s Patty Berg Memorial to be held from April 14th through 17th will conclude this historic two-week collaboration in Florida between the TLPGA Tour and the Symetra Tour.

The TLPGA has been increasing efforts to build a more international tour by reaching to the China LPGA, Ladies Philippine Golf Tour (LPGT) and Ladies Asian Tour (LAGT) over the past two calendar years. This will be a debut a TLPGA Tour event is featured on the Symetra Tour as well.

TLPGA secretary Lee Ming-Yun said the TLPGA tried to forge the partnership starting in last April’s Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic, where its player would not have sufficient warm-up to the drastic change of conditions in San Francisco especially after a two-month hiatus in February and March on the TLPGA Tour schedule.

“Our players haven’t been doing well on this premier stage to be honest,” said Lee. “There could be a lot of things to overcome with the time difference, the conditions, and the fact that the course was not open for practice until the tournament week. So we talked about the possibility with the LPGA of having a couple of events on the Symetra Tour before players head to San Francisco so they would have better preparation. We hope it will result in better performance.”

TLPGA Chairwoman Liu Yi Chen said, finally the TLPGA reached an agreement with the Symetra Tour that a considerable portion of the prize purse will be provided by the TLPGA and there will be 12 sponsor invitation opportunities for TLPGA members from the organizers in return. Full 2016 Symetra Tour memberships will also be given to the winners.

Defending champion of this event will be American Sue Kim. Taiwan’s Lin Tzu-Chi held the 2011 title.

The fifteen Taiwan representatives include three Symetra Tour members Cheng Ssu-Chia (程思嘉), Chien Pei-Yun (錢珮芸), and Doris Chen (陳彥寧). Some other notable names are 2015 TLPGA Money Winner Kuo Ai-Chen (郭艾榛) and rising teenager Chang Ya-Chun (張雅淳).

There will be a cut to be made to the low 60 and ties after 36 holes. Play will begin at 7:30 a.m. on Friday morning.