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The LPGA Tour is going to Hawaii twice in 2027, and one new event will come with a unique twist.
The new tournament will be played at Nanea Golf Club in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island, March 11-14, the tour announced Tuesday. The Nanea Cup, with a purse of $4 million, will have a field of 95 LPGA Tour players and 25 collegiate golfers from five programs: Stanford, UCLA, Arkansas, Texas and Texas A&M.
It will undoubtedly be a popular place to play, considering the links-style David McLay Kidd design at Hawaii’s most exclusive private club.
In a format unlike any other before on the LPGA, all of the golfers will compete in the first two rounds. After Friday’s play, there will be a cut to the low 50 players and ties, while the college women will continue with a 36-hole Saturday to determine a team champion. For college players who made the cut, they will play on Sunday among the LPGA players.
“Our excitement about adding the Nanea Cup to the 2027 LPGA Tour schedule is off the charts,” LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler said in a statement. “As we continue to focus on [schedule] routing, courses and purses, this event checks every box. Hawaii is a natural stop as we return from Asia and head to the West Coast. Nanea is a spectacular venue, our athletes will compete for a strong purse, and fans will get their first look at one of the most celebrated golf courses in the world.”
The event is being sponsored by four companies: Charles Schwab, Dell Technologies, Salesforce and Workday.
The tour also plays in Hawaii in October with the Lotte Championship at Hoakalei Country Club in Oahu.
Past U.S. Women’s Open winner Allisen Corpuz is from Hawaii, and she now has an opportunity to play both events on the islands. When Corpuz golfed at USC, she played Nanea in the then-Pac 12 Preview.
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Previous Next Pause Play false Private Nanea Golf Club Kailua Kona, HI 4.7 17 Panelists In the early 1960s, Robert Trent Jones built the first course on Hawaii’s Big Island for a very wealthy owner (Laurance Rockefeller), grinding up the site’s volcanic rock to use as “sand” on which to grow grass. Forty years later and just 22 miles away, architect David McLay Kidd also built a course on volcanic rock for very wealthy owners (Charles Schwab and George Roberts), but rather than transform the lava topography, he routed his holes among the black outcroppings and through the site’s meadows of native grasses. Located on a high, exposed plateau beneath Mt. Hualalai, the holes ramble and roll into topsy-turvy greens, each with a sterling view of the Pacific Ocean three and a half miles in the distance. View CourseStanford has hosted an event at Nanea—co-founded by Charles Schwab and billionaire financier George Roberts—since 2013 and now will play two tournaments at the famed course in 2027. Stanford coach Anne Walker is excited on many levels.
“Mr. Roberts and Mr. Schwab have been very supportive of women’s golf in general,” Walker told Golf Digest. “They were some of the first to open the doors to what’s a very private, exclusive club. That’s become commonplace here in the last maybe five to seven years. In 2013, it was really cool. We have that established relationship with them. The LPGA approached them about potentially hosting there and there was strong interest from both sides.”
Walker and her program, which has won three of the last five national titles, have used the trip to take in tourist attractions as well, like seeing the manta rays at night, snorkeling, dolphin watching, coffee plantations and more.
The tournament will be the first significant television exposure for the club.
“Golf Channel applauds the LPGA’s bold vision in creating a joint event with collegiate golf teams in primetime at a premiere venue such as Nanea Golf Club,” said Tom Knapp, Golf Channel’s executive vice president and GM. “New, dynamic ideas are critical, and we look forward to putting our deep experience and relationships with today’s college golfers and coaches to work to help the LPGA build this innovative new event.”
Some of the big collegiate names who could tee it up are Arkansas’ Maria Jose Marin—who won this year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur—and Texas senior and reigning NCAA champion Farah O’Keefe, if they don’t earn their LPGA cards through the LPGA Elite Amateur Pathway (LEAP) program before then.
