The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has announced that defending champion Minjee Lee will headline an elite field in the 2023 LPGA Cognizant Founders Cup taking place May 10-14 at the Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton.
Returning to northern New Jersey for the third straight year of play on one of the state’s premier golf courses, the tournament will celebrate Mother’s Day Weekend with six MOMs on Tour competing in the field. This event helps drive the LPGA’s mission to engage, empower, and support girls and women in sports and business while honoring the 13 founding members of the LPGA. The event also kicks off the Year of Women’s Golf in New Jersey, with four professional golf events scheduled during May and June.
Teaneck-based Cognizant, one of the world’s leading professional services companies, will continue to serve as title sponsor for the 2023 Cognizant Founders Cup. The event offers a $3 million purse, one of the largest of any LPGA Tour events outside the majors and the CME Group Tour Championship.
The 144-player field will be filled with the tour’s most talented and accomplished players. Among these athletes will be two special exemptions, current NJSGA Women’s Amateur Champion and Player of The Year Katie Lu, as well as the winner of The John Shippen Cognizant Cup, an 18-hole stroke play competition for Black women golfers at Upper Montclair Country Club on May 7-8.
“The LPGA is excited to once again host our prestigious Cognizant Founders Cup at iconic Upper Montclair Country Club in northern New Jersey, where women’s golf is so passionately embraced by fans and sponsors alike,” said Scott Wood, director, Cognizant Founders Cup. “Now in our third year, this event has found a home in New Jersey and there is no better place to salute the founders of the LPGA and continue the conversation on empowering women.”
Wood adds, “What makes 2023 even more special is that the Cognizant Founders Cup kicks off the year of women’s golf in New Jersey and fans across the state will get to get to watch the best players in the world compete in four professional events over a six-week span.”
“We are thrilled to help support the talented athletes of the LPGA through our Title Sponsorship of the Cognizant Founders Cup,” said Gaurav Chand, chief marketing officer. “Cognizant is committed to creating equal opportunity and diversity both in and out of the workplace and recognizes the important role that women’s professional sports can play in creating a better future for the next generation of women and girls. We look forward to the 2023 LPGA season in New Jersey and beyond.”
The Cognizant Founders Cup joins a long list of prestigious events to be held at Upper Montclair Country Club (UMCC), which is one of few country clubs worldwide to have hosted tournaments for all three professional golf tours, including the LPGA in 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, and 2007-2009. This legendary A.W. Tillinghast golf course design underwent major renovation in the 1950s, directed by Robert Trent Jones. The renovation transformed UMCC into its present 27-hole Championship layout.
“The membership of Upper Montclair Country Club is excited to host the Cognizant Founders Cup for a second straight year,” said Charlie Dimpfl, CCM, general manager and COO of the Upper Montclair Country Club. “There is no greater supporter of women’s golf and the professional game than UMCC, and we expect today’s world-class women professionals will find our golf course as challenging, yet as fair as their predecessors.”
A fun-filled week of “family entertainment” awaits fans of all ages, as the greatest professional golfers in the world compete in one of the most prestigious tournaments on the LPGA calendar. Among the event’s beneficiaries is LPGA*USGA Girls Golf, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) junior golf program that positively impacts over 100,000 girls who are learning and loving the game.
To purchase individual and weeklong ticket packages along with an assortment of hospitality options, golf fans can now visit www.thefounderslpga.com. General admission tickets, providing access to the tournament grounds any day Thursday through Sunday are $45, with a weekly 5-day pass available for $125. Hospitality packages, which begin at $100 per day, include access to on-course hospitality and an assortment of food and beverage options. Juniors 17 and under receive free general admission, and active and retired Military can show their ID at the gate, giving them access to a free grounds pass on that given day (accompanying guests not included).
Photo caption: The Cognizant Founders Cup, an event that honors the 13 founding members of the LPGA, held its 2023 Media Day on April 25 at Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton. (L-R): LPGA Properties Director of Sponsorships Becky Newell; current NJSGA Women’s Amateur Champion and Player of the Year, Katie Lu; and Cognizant Technology Solutions’ Chief Marketing Officer for the Americas Antonella Bonanni.
