Why Black Desert Resort abandoned its LPGA strategy after one year

Black Desert Resort managing partner Patrick Manning told Golfweek the LPGA event “didn’t really happen” in terms of local support. The tour stop at the Utah resort was played just once, in May 2025.

“I thought I could get Utah excited to support these women, show up for the women here, and it didn’t really happen. It was a huge letdown,” Manning said.

After pouring resources into the event — charter planes for players and free on-site lodging among them — Manning wanted to set the record straight about why the resort changed its strategy. No specific attendance figures or revenue numbers are provided in the source, so the scale of that letdown remains unconfirmed.

What is clear is that Manning’s vision for the event extended beyond a single tournament. He believed the resort could model how women’s professional golfers should be treated, and that Utah would respond. It didn’t, and that gap between expectation and reality forced a rethink.

FROM EPSON TO LPGA

Manning’s original plan was more modest: bring an Epson Tour event — the LPGA’s developmental circuit — to Utah for two years. The first tournament was to be held at Shoulder Hollow Golf Course, a 36-hole mountainside complex in Park City, before moving to Black Desert.

But the plan hit a snag. Another Epson Tour event at Copper Rock Golf Course in Hurricane, Utah, held market exclusivity, blocking the move.

Manning proposed a simple solution: make it a full-fledged LPGA Tour event.

“And they started laughing, and that’s how it all got started,” Manning recalled to Golfweek. “I’m like, I don’t know what’s funny. Seriously, let’s make it a full (LPGA) tournament.”

And they did. The LPGA agreed, and the event became a full LPGA tournament — the exact date of that agreement is not confirmed in the source.