The schedule was officially released today listing 31 official events, down from 34 this year.  Here is the press release from LPGA.com.  There are a couple of positive surprises along with a negative one.  The good news for me was - my unofficial tally of the schedule had the dates correct for all the events listed, although I did list one event which is (as yet) not on the schedule.

First the bad news, which leaked out late yesterday - Tulsa's event is not there.  The tournament previously sponsored by SemGroup has not secured a replacement sponsor.  I'll assume that search continues and if a sponsor is found, that event would go into the open May 28-31 slot.  We already knew that Fields and the Ginn Tribute would be missing.  The good news is after the jump...

The old Safeway International event in Phoenix is being called the Phoenix LPGA International.  Apparently the Tour feels that the area's record of good support for women's golf is worth having the LPGA prop the event up for at least one year.  The purse in Phoenix remains at $1.5 million so that is a large investment indeed for the Tour to make.

To my great surprise and pleasure, the Corona Championship is on the schedule for April 23-26.  I had believed all year that Corona's associate sponsorship of the Ochoa Invitational was a sign that this event was kaput.  So for the second year in a row, three LPGA events will be played in Mexico.

The State Farm Classic moves to a new week again - Labor Day weekend in '07, mid-July in '08, June 4-7 in '09.  Moving it shifts an off-week to mid-July and leaves June with one off-week.

If not for the Solheim Cup, August would be as barren as this past September.  Two off-weeks precede Solheim and it is followed by a 13-week marathon of official events, which include Samsung and Longs (two events we weren't real sure about) and concludes with the Stanford Financial Tour Championship in Houston.  We'll see if the Stanford keeps the format of the ADT finale - we've already learned that the pro-am format hasn't survived.

The schedule balances out nicely with each month getting one off-week, and then the players get a two-week break heading into Solheim and the marathon fall segment.  It is possible that another event or two could be added (China was added early this year after the season had already begun) but today's announcement suggests that won't happen.  It does mention that "several unofficial money events are expected to be announced by the end of the year".  What exactly that means is anybody's guess.  Given the gloom and doom we were expecting on the scheduling front, 31 events is a good result.