The 2008 LPGA Tour was a series of weekly golf tournaments for elite female golfers from around the world that took place from February through December 2008. The tournaments were sanctioned by the United States-based Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). In 2008, prize money on the LPGA Tour was $60.3 million, the highest to date in the history of the tour.
Lorena Ochoa topped the money list, earning $2,763,193. Ochoa also led the league in most wins with six, including four consecutive tournaments in March and April and one major tournament.
The four major championships were won by: Lorena Ochoa (Kraft Nabisco Championship), Yani Tseng (LPGA Championship), Inbee Park (U.S. Women's Open), and Ji-Yai Shin (Women's British Open). All major winners except Ochoa were not only first-time major winners, but first-time winners on the LPGA Tour. Tseng, at 19 years old, and Park and Shin, both at 20 years old, became the youngest-ever winners of the respective majors.
On May 12, a day after winning her third tournament of the season, Annika Sörenstam announced her intent to "step away" from competitive golf at the end of the 2008 season. She continued to draw large crowds through the remainder of the season, though she did not win another tournament on the LPGA Tour before the end of the year.
Jiyai Shin, a 20-year-old non-LPGA member, set records on the LPGA Tour by winning three of the nine tournaments in which she played, including the Women's British Open and the season-ending ADT Championship with its $1 million first place prize. She became the first non-LPGA member ever to win three events.
The LPGA organization also attracted attention in 2008 when commissioner Carolyn Bivens announced a new policy in August that would have required all players who had been on the tour for two years to show proficiency in English or face suspension. The Tour rescinded the policy two weeks later after increasing criticism from the media and from LPGA Tour sponsors.
For details of what happened in the main tournaments of the year see 2008 in golf.
Read more about 2008 LPGA Tour: Tournament Schedule and Results, Leaders, Award Winners, See Also
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