Later in the day, starting at 1p.m., three groups highlighted by big-name players with Bay Area ties - Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer, Juli Inkster - will tee off. At the risk of sounding provincial, the Bay Area should host a high-profile tournament every year. In a region teeming with rich golf history and terrific courses, it's ridiculous that the PGA and LPGA tours do not plant roots and return annually. Swinging Skirts, the Taiwan-based organization sponsoring the tournament, deserves full credit for providing a hefty purse ($1.8 million) and bringing the world's best players to the Bay Area. The group, a nonprofit intent on growing the game, has sponsored a tournament on the Taiwan LPGA tour the past three years but craved the chance to become affiliated with the U.S.-based LPGA Tour, the highest level of women's golf. The group's contract as title sponsor runs three years; Lake Merced's deal as host course covers only one year, with options for 2015 and '16. Tour officials want to come back to San Francisco amid lingering rumors of the Match Play Championship possibly moving here next year, but they're struggling to find a deep-pocketed sponsor interested in the Bay Area. (Lexi Thompson is in Europe satisfying a sponsor commitment - sound familiar?) Plus, the LPGA is much more appealing than it was in October 2010, when Spain's Beatriz Recari won the fifth and final edition of the tournament at Blackhawk.

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