Other "LPGA"s exist in other countries, each with a geographical designation in its name, but the U.S. organization is the largest and best known. The LPGA is also an organization for female club and teaching professionals. This is different from the PGA Tour, which runs the main professional tours in the U.S. and, since 1968, has been independent of the club and teaching professionals' organization, the PGA of America.

The LPGA was founded in 1950 by a group of 13 women, including Babe Didrikson Zaharias. It is now the oldest ongoing women's professional sports organization in the United States.

LPGA Tour tournaments

Most of the LPGA Tour's events are held in the United States. In 2008, three tournaments will be held in Mexico and one each in Singapore, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, China, South Korea, and Japan. Four of the tournaments held outside North America are co-sanctioned with other professional tours. The Ladies European Tour co-sanctions the Evian Masters in France and the Women's British Open, held the following week. The other two co-sanctioned events—the Korea Championship (LPGA of Korea Tour) and Mizuno Classic (LPGA of Japan Tour)—are held in successive autumn weeks in Asia. This Asian swing formerly included a tournament in Thailand, but that event was dropped for 2008 and replaced with a new tournament in China.

The LPGA's annual major championships are:

• Kraft Nabisco Championship
• McDonald's U.S. LPGA Championship Presented by Coca-Cola
• U.S. Women's Open
• Ricoh Women's British Open (held in cooperation with Ladies European Tour)

International presence

In its early decades, the LPGA Tour was dominated by American players. Sandra Post of Canada became the first player living outside the United States to gain an LPGA tour card in 1968. The non-U.S. contingent is now very large. The last time an American player topped the money list was in 1993, the last time an American led the tour in tournaments won was in 1996, and from 2000 through 2008, non-Americans won 28 of 36 major championships. In 2008, there are 121 non-Americans from 26 countries, including 45 from South Korea, 15 from Sweden, 11 from Australia, nine from the United Kingdom (four each from England and Scotland and one from Wales), six from Canada, five from Taiwan, and four from Germany.

In August 2008, the LPGA Tour announced a new policy that would have required all players who had been on the tour for two years to be able to speak English or face suspension. They rescinded the policy two weeks later amidst increasing criticism, including criticism from LPGA sponsors. Commissioner Bivens will be announcing a revised policy that will not include penalties. The LPGA has not disclosed by what standards English proficiency will be judged or provided information on whether it will provide education, tutoring, or classes for players whose native language is not English. The LPGA has not required monolingual English-speakers to learn another language. One American commentator, Ron Sirak of Golf World magazine, said after the demise of the English-only proposal that "The LPGA was hit by a sucker punch — after setting itself up as the sucker," adding that the single biggest source of revenue for the tour is the sale of television rights in South Korea.