The LPGA, in full the Ladies Professional Golf Association, is an American organization for female professional golfers. The organization, whose headquarters are in Daytona Beach, Florida, is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekly golf tournaments for elite female golfers from around the world that runs from February to December each year. In 2009, total prize money on the LPGA Tour will be nearly $55 million, a decrease of about $5 million from 2008, and 31 total official events, down from 34 in 2008.

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 2009, three tournaments are scheduled for Mexico and one each in Singapore, Canada, France, England, China, South Korea, Thailand, 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 Hana Bank-KOLON Championship (LPGA of Korea Tour) and Mizuno Classic (LPGA of Japan Tour) -— are held in successive autumn weeks in Asia.

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 2009, there are 122 non-Americans from 27 countries, including 47 from South Korea, 14 from Sweden, 10 from Australia, eight from the United Kingdom (four from England, three from Scotland and one from Wales), seven from Canada, five from Taiwan, and four from Japan.

Of the 33 events in 2006, only seven were won by Americans, with Cristie Kerr the only American to win more than once (three times). By contrast, Mexican Lorena Ochoa won seven events, Australian Karrie Webb five, Swede Annika Sörenstam three, and nine South Koreans (Joo Mi Kim, Meena Lee, Sung Ah Yim, Mi Hyun Kim (2), Hee-Won Han(2), Seon Hwa Lee, Se Ri Pak, Jeong Jang, and Jin Joo Hong) combined to win 11 events. (See 2006 LPGA Tour for more details on the 2006 season.)