PROVIDENCE – A Rhode Island company is bringing the LPGA tour back to New England.
FM Global, an international commercial property insurer based in Johnston, announced Friday it has signed on to be the lead sponsor of the FM Global Championship which will be held at TPC Boston in Norton for the next five years. It will feature a $3.5 million purse, the largest on the LPGA Tour outside of the majors and the tour championship.
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“We are proud to partner with the LPGA Tour to support this new, marquee event and bring women’s professional golf back to New England,” said Malcolm Roberts, president and CEO of FM Global. “The FM Global Championship provides a tremendous platform to promote diversity and inclusion on the playing field and in the workplace, raise awareness of FM Global’s unique approach to helping clients protect their businesses and mitigate loss, engage our employees, and drive positive impact in our communities.”
The 72-hole event will be called the 2024 FM Global Championship, and it will be held at the Norton club from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1 with a field of 144 players.
“Boston is quickly becoming a dynamic home for women’s sports,” LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said in a statement. “We are thrilled to join this incredible movement, as the famed TPC Boston prepares to host the 2024 FM Global Championship, marking a historic return of the LPGA Tour to New England.”
Fenway Sports Management helped secure FM Global’s sponsorship of the championship as part of a commercial alliance with the LPGA formed earlier this year.
“We are thrilled to welcome this event to the region and look forward to seeing a positive impact in Both Rhode Island and Mass,” Gov. Daniel J. McKee tweeted Friday on X.
McKee told WJAR-TV CBS 10 Friday that this golf tournament will bring people into the area, similar to how football teams fly in and stay in hotels in downtown Providence when they play at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.
“We know that the connection there will be very similar here, when we have a professional sports like the LPGA anchoring themselves here,” McKee told WJAR.
He also said that this women’s championship is “an absolute thing to celebrate.”
The 2024 FM Global Championship will be the first time LPGA stars will compete in New England time since the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open was held at Orchards Golf Club in South Hadley, Mass. That tournament is managed by the United States Golf Association.
The last LPGA event in the Greater Boston area was 1997, when Liselotte Neumann won the Welch’s Championship at Blue Hill Country Club in Canton.
Other notable women’s golf events held in Massachusetts include the 1954 and 1984 U.S. Women’s Opens at Salem Country Club in Peabody, the 1967-1968 and 1970-1974 KPMG Women’s PGA Championships at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton, and the 1960 U.S. Women’s Open at Worcester Country Club in Worcester.
(UPDATE: Comment from McKee added in 8th, ninth and 10th paragraphs)
(Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.)
