ORLANDO, Fla. -- Golf Channel's four-round, high definition coverage of the McDonald's LPGA Championship presented by Coca-Cola next week will not lack for storylines.
Defending McDonald's LPGA champion and 2008 Rookie of the Year Yani Tseng will continue her quest to dethrone Lorena Ochoa atop the Rolex Rankings, while Michelle Wie will return to Bulle Rock Golf Course, where four years ago she finished runner-up as a 15-year-old amateur, for the first time since 2007. Double points also will be on the line in determining the 2009 U.S. Solheim Cup Team.
Golf Channel's live coverage of the LPGA's second major of the year will air Thursday - Friday (June 11-12) from 12:30 - 3:30 p.m. ET, with weekend coverage from 4 - 7 p.m. ET. Prime-time encore airings also can be seen Thursday - Friday at 7 p.m. ET and Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
The network's broadcast team will feature three LPGA major champions - Dottie Pepper (two-time Kraft Nabisco Champion), Hall-of-Famer Beth Daniel (1990 McDonald's LPGA Champion and 2009 U.S. Solheim Cup Team Captain) and six-time major champion and Hall-of-Famer Donna Caponi-Byrnes (1979 and 1981 LPGA Champion).
Brian Hammons and Pepper will serve as play-by-play host and lead analyst for the telecast. Tom Abbott and LPGA veteran Kay Cockerill will call-the action from on-course tower positions, with Daniel and Caponi-Byrnes reporting from the course. Rich Lerner will serve as show host and conduct post-round interviews.
Golf Channel will produce the McDonald's LPGA Championship in high definition, and will feature the Emmy Award-winning Mutual of Omaha Putting Line powered by AimPoint technology. The graphics technology that predicts the break of a putt and suggests where a player must aim to hole out, Mutual of Omaha Putting Line will be featured on holes 16 and 18. LPGA Professional Christina Kim will be mic'ed during Thursday's opening round telecast, and the network also will conduct on-course interviews with players as the make the turn during the four rounds.
About Golf Channel:
Golf Channel(www.GolfChannel.com), co-founded by Arnold Palmer and a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, will be the exclusive cable home for all the world's major golf tours beginning in 2010. The network is available in more than 120 million homes worldwide through cable, satellite and wireless companies. Golf Channel features a programming schedule that includes more live golf coverage than all other networks combined, as well as news, instruction and original productions. In 2009, more than 2,100 hours and over 750 original hours will air in native HD featuring tournaments and all-new original series. In addition to more than 40 PGA Tour events and at least 15 European Tour events, Golf Channel will air selected LPGA Tour stops, The Presidents Cup and The Solheim Cup in HD. The network became the exclusive cable home of the PGA Tour in 2007, and televises part or all of every PGA Tour event. In addition, the network is exclusive television home of the Nationwide Tour, European Tour and Canadian Tour, and the exclusive cable home of the Champions Tour. Also featured is a generous mix of other competition from the LPGA Tour, USGA, PGA of America, Asian Tour, PGA Tour of Australasia and Sunshine Tour of Southern Africa.
For more information contact Golf Channel Public Relations at 407-355-4653.
