When Mike Whan, the L.P.G.A. commissioner, designated the Evian Championship as a major tournament in 2011, he hoped he’d covered every strategic contingency.
Whan, a marketing expert who had taken over as L.P.G.A. commissioner in 2010, had inherited an organization that seemed poised for a global presence but unsure how to navigate the process. Whan saw the Evian Championship, whose latest edition tees off this week at the Evian Resort in France, as a keynote event in his plan to increase global participation and sponsorship. In 2013, he moved the event to September to avoid clashes with P.