ANNIKA Tour coming to Colorado

Women’s pro tour event coming to Todd Creek in 2025

By Jim Bebbington

Westminster business owner Mike Meador and his business partner, Steve Wright, are meeting with neighborhood residents, rounding up sponsors and beginning to stump for volunteers as they prepare to bring an ANNIKA Women’s All Pro Tour event to Colorado next summer.

The women’s professional golf tour is a feeder tour for former college players and overseas players working their way up in hopes of reaching the LPGA Tour.

Meador and Wright run Westminster-based Brand Asset Partners and have been working for a little over three years to bring an ANNIKA Tour event to the region.

This year the ANNIKA Women’s All Pro Tour had 12 tournaments around the country, most with first-place winnings of between $10,000 and $20,000. The tournament series allows players to continue developing their crafts as pros, and some access to tournaments one level higher, the Epson Tour. The Epson Tour is the LPGA’s qualification tour, with top finishers earning status on the full LPGA Tour.

“These are all players scratching and clawing, working their way up to the Epson Tour, and the next step is the LPGA,” Meador said.

Meador said he became interested in organizing golf events over a decade in which he grew a charity golf tournament named in honor of his parents.

Now they are stepping up their efforts to host a professional tournament. The week-long event is scheduled to be held at Todd Creek Golf Club in Thornton from July 27 to Aug. 1. Meador and Wright have held town-hall meetings with residents who live around the course to answer questions about traffic and the opportunities to volunteer and are beginning to line up sponsors now.

And just like the organizers of the Korn Ferry tournament held at TPC Colorado, they are beginning to assemble host families and homes for many of the players. At this level most of the players are self-funded, Wright said.

“The girls are much more self-funded; they’re footing the bill at this level,” Wright said.

The week will include a Pro-Am and junior clinics before the four-day stroke-play competition. They have already registered for the competition local professional Ashley Tait-Wengert – an Epson Tour veteran who teaches golf at Turkey Creek Golf Club in Evergreen.

The Tour recently affiliated with LPGA Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam – hence the name – with a portion of the tournament’s proceeds going to support the Annika Foundation. The foundation seeks to help women and girl golfers, and among its goals is to help young pros gain experience and insight into the other careers open to women’s pros beyond tournament golf.

For more information go to wapt.golf.