Curious addition at LPGA's first major has deeper meaning

The plunge pool at Memorial Park will be around for just one year before a long-term plan is enacted to keep tradition alive LPGA HOUSTON — Traditions take years, sometimes decades, to take hold but they’re a vital part of professional golf. They help tell the story of the game’s most important tournaments. Think the green jacket at the Masters, or U.

S. Open Sunday on Father’s Day. When LPGA great Amy Alcott spontaneously jumped into a pond in a moment of post-win ecstasy at the 1988 Nabisco Dinah Shore (now the Chevron Championship ), she didn’t expect the leap to become a tradition that lasted for 40 years and moved courses and states.

But it has. In 2023, when the Chevron moved from Mission Hills in California to The Club at Carlton Woods in Houston, the players told the tournament’s organizers that they wanted to keep the pond jump alive. So the organizers dredged a pond and ringed it with gator netting to give players peace of mind.

The tradition appeared in danger this year, with the tournament moving to Memorial Park , a Houston muni that doesn’t have water on the 18th hole. But the LPGA and tournament organizers heard from numerous players about the importance of the pond jump’s legacy and so made short- and long-term plans to keep it alive. For the 2026 edition, organizers constructed a temporary plunge pool off to the right of the 18th green, measuring 15 feet by 10 feet and 4 1/2 feet deep.