Chevron Took a Leap in Moving a Cherished LPGA Major. Now Will a Winner Leap Into a New Pond?
THE WOODLANDS, Texas — The future of one of golf’s most beloved traditions hinges on the winner of the Chevron Championship.
Will she make the celebratory leap into the water beside the 18th hole?
The champion’s leap has been an integral part of the rich history of this event that dates back more than 50 years. And maintaining that history is something that the tournament, in partnership with Chevron and the LPGA, is ensuring will continue as the major has moved away from Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Thursday at the Club at Carlton Woods, the Chevron Championship began for the first time at its new home in The Woodlands, about a 30-minute drive north of downtown Houston.
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The Jack Nicklaus Signature Course, which is one of two courses at the club, features a par-5 finishing hole with water that runs along the left side of the fairway and green, reminiscent of the championship’s former home on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course, which has water surrounding the final green.
“Our position on this is the players are at the heart of the tradition and the players’ choice is at the heart of the tradition,” said Tournament Director Jeremy Harvey-Samuel about the winner’s decision whether or not to leap into the water on Sunday and continue the tradition that was born more than three decades ago.
He added that there are no expectations that the winner should jump into the water.
In October 2021, Chevron took over from All Nippon Airways as the title sponsor of the major championship and infused the purse with a 60 percent boost to more than $5 million. But that announcement also came with the news that the major would be moving to the Houston area. Last August, the Club at Carlton Woods was named as the host venue.
“Chevron was pretty integral in deciding, when the decision did come to move this event, that this was a continuation of the events history and events tradition,” Harvey-Samuel said. “This certainly wasn't a closing the door on the past. It was an evolution of it.”
Chevron established a player advisory council made up of players past and present including Judy Rankin, Morgan Pressel and Stacy Lewis to ensure that the championship would meet players’ expectations. And that meant maintaining certain traditions while letting others go and establishing the new.
But that’s the thing about traditions. Many are organic. They happen spontaneously and then become woven into the fabric of a tournament’s history, connecting the past with the present.
That’s how the whole ritual of jumping into Poppie’s Pond began. Amy Alcott decided to pull her caddie into the water beside the 18th green at Mission Hills Country Club after winning the then-titled Nabisco Dinah Shore in 1988. When Alcott won again three years later she grabbed tournament host Dinah Shore and took her into the water with her.
Who plans in advance to jump into a pond covered in scum? It wasn't forced. It just happened. And that’s the very reason why Harvey-Samuel says they’ve chosen to leave it up to the players to decide whether the leap will live on in Texas.
While the future of the jump remains in doubt, there is no question about the role former tournament host Dinah Shore will continue to play in the future of the major championship.
Come Sunday, the winner will hoist the Dinah Shore Trophy while the VIPs overlooking the 18th green will be sitting in a hospitality area named “Dinah’s Place.” And Shore’s daughter, Melissa Montgomery, has been invited to attend.
“Chevron crushed it,” Lewis said. “You see it with the trophy. Dinah's Place on 18. Everything is about Dinah this week, and that's what we tried to tell them over and over again is what was important.”
Should the winner decide to make the leap and continue the tradition started by Alcott, Stephen Salzman, the General Manager and Chief Operating Officer at the Club at Carlton Woods, tells Sports Illustrated that the water around the 18th green has been made safe for a player to jump.
Salzman says he didn’t want to create a concrete chlorine pool like Poppie’s Pond because of its artificial look in an otherwise natural environment and wanted to be mindful of the year-round membership. Instead, the staff brought in a dock that will allow players to jump out into a deeper portion of the pond that is roughly eight feet deep.
Salzman says a portion of the pond closest to the 18th green was dredged and pylons were submerged just beneath the surface to hold netting designed to keep alligators from penetrating the space. Snakes, however, could still make their way into the jump zone. Salzman says the arrangement was done quickly and will be improved next year, but constructing a pool like the one at Mission Hills won’t be happening.
Major champions Nelly Korda, Angela Stanford and Ashleigh Buhai said they would leap into the water if they win on Sunday, while others like Minjee Lee and defending champion Jennifer Kupcho said they would seriously consider a jump, depending on the pond’s condition.
“I guess we'll see what comes down to it. I'm not really sure,” said Kupcho, who was the last player to make the leap into Poppie’s Pond. “I think there might be snakes in the water here, so might be a little interesting.”
If the winner of the Chevron Championship chooses to jump into the water on Sunday, they’ll experience conditions much like those that Alcott first encountered when she jumped into the water for the first time more than 30 years ago. Back then it was au naturel, covered in pond scum and a far cry from the pristine conditions that became known as Poppie’s Pond. And a leap on Sunday would bring the tradition full circle, just as the next chapter of the Chevron Championship begins.