The Airbus LPGA Classic was a women's professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

tournament on the

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly ...

, played in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobil ...

from 2008 to 2014. The event debuted in September

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

at the Magnolia Grove location on the

Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail is a collection of championship caliber golf courses, designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr., distributed across the state of Alabama, as part of investments by the Retirement Systems of Alabama. The Trail started ...

, with total prize money of $1.4 million.

Angela Stanford Angela Gwen Stanford (born November 28, 1977) is an American professional golfer who currently competes on the LPGA Tour. Amateur career Born and raised in Saginaw, Texas, Stanford won the Fort Worth Girls Championship four times (1993–1996), ...

won the inaugural edition by one stroke over

Shanshan Feng Shanshan Feng (, ; born 5 August 1989) is a Chinese former professional golfer who previously played on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour. She was the first player from China to become a member of the LPGA Tour, which she joined in 2008. Feng had 10 vic ...

, which was televised on

Golf Channel Golf Channel (also verbally referred to as simply "Golf" or "NBC Golf") is an American sports television network owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Founded in Birmingham, Alabama, it is currently ba ...

in the U.S., as well as internationally. The tournament was not played in

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

, but was revived in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

and moved to mid-May. Heavy rains and lightning delayed and ultimately canceled the final round, resulting in a sudden-death playoff between the three 54-hole leaders:

Se Ri Pak Pak Se-ri or Se-ri Pak (, ; born 28 September 1977) is a South Korean former professional golfer who played on the LPGA Tour from 1998 to 2016. She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2007. Career Born in Taejon, she attended i ...

Brittany Lincicome Brittany Grace Lincicome (born September 19, 1985) is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. She currently resides in Gulfport, Florida. Lincicome is one of the longest drivers in the history of women's golf. In her rookie ...

, and

Suzann Pettersen Suzann Pettersen (born 7 April 1981) is a retired Norwegian professional golfer. She played mainly on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour, and was also a member of the Ladies European Tour. Her career-best world ranking was second and she held that positio ...

. Pak birdied the third playoff hole in the drizzle to win. In 2011, Maria Hjorth shot consecutive rounds of 67 (−5) on the weekend to finish at 278 (−10) and win by two strokes. The tournament was dropped for the 2015 season. In 2008 and 2010, Bell Microproducts was the title sponsor;

Avnet Avnet, Inc. is a distributor of electronic components headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, named after Charles Avnet, who founded the company in 1921. After its start on Manhattan's Radio Row, the company became incorporated in 1955 and began t ...

purchased Bell Micro in 2010 and was the title sponsor in 2011. Without a title sponsor in 2012, the tournament purse dropped slightly, from $1.30 million to $1.25 million. In January

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

, the LPGA introduced

Airbus Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate Airbus Defence and Space, defence and space and Airbus Helicopters, he ...

, the European multinational aerospace and defense corporation, as the event's new title sponsor. The company's new final assembly facility for its

A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first member of the famil ...

aircraft is under construction in Mobile, scheduled to come online in 2015. Mobile previously hosted

The Mitchell Company Tournament of Champions The Mitchell Company Tournament of Champions was a golf tournament for professional female golfers on the LPGA Tour. It was played annually from 1994 to 2007 at various sites in the Southeastern United States. It was last played at the Robert Tren ...

on the Magnolia Grove courses from

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

Tournament names

– 10: Bell Micro LPGA Classic *

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

LPGA Classic *

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

– 13: Mobile Bay LPGA Classic *

LPGA Classic Presented by

JTBC JTBC (shortened from Joongang Tongyang Broadcasting Company; ; stylized in all lowercase) is a South Korean nationwide pay television network. Its primary shareholder is JoongAng Holdings, with a 25% stake. It was launched on December 1, ...

2013 course layout

Crossings Course

Winners

¹ Final round was canceled because of rain and weather delays. Third round co-leaders Pak,

, and

played a sudden-death playoff to determine the winner; Pak won on the third playoff hole.

Tournament records

References

External links

*
Coverage on the LPGA Tour's official websiteRobert Trent Jones Golf Trail
- Magnolia Grove {{coord, 30.741, -88.206, display=title Former LPGA Tour events Golf tournaments in Alabama Women's sports in Alabama Sports competitions in Mobile, Alabama Airbus Recurring sporting events established in 2008 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2014 2008 establishments in Alabama 2014 disestablishments in Alabama