New golf course, new sponsor, but same great way to kick off the LPGA Tour season.

The 2022 LPGA Tour season starts on Jan. 20 with the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions at the storied Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, Fla. All of the winners from the past two seasons on the LPGA Tour are qualified to compete – including Golf Town Athlete Brooke Henderson.

Brooke, who captured the Hugel-Air Premia LA Open last year, always looks forward to this first event of the season.

“That tournament is always so exciting to start with,” said Brooke,” with all the celebrities, it’s pretty cool!”

Indeed, the first event of the year also includes a celebrity Pro-Am division which boasts big names from the world of Hollywood, sports, and media. Some of the athletes confirmed to participate this year have Canadian connections including former MLB MVP (when he was with the Toronto Blue Jays) Josh Donaldson – who has played with Brooke in the past – along with Toronto Raptors legend Vince Carter.

Annika Sorenstam, who lives in Lake Nona, will be playing in the ‘celebrity’ division. Kira Dixon, a former Miss America winner, and model/television reporter Blair O’Neal are the other two women teeing it up.

Last year’s Tournament of Champions was won in dramatic fashion by Jessica Korda.

Korda defeated Danielle Kang in a playoff after Kang had a four-shot lead shrink to nothing late Sunday. Korda was grouped with Kang and her younger sister, Nelly Korda, in the final group in the final round.

The victory for the elder Korda came after she fired a sizzling Saturday 60. She was just the fifth player in LPGA Tour history to card a 60 and the first since Paula Creamer more than a decade prior.

It was a special victory for Korda as well.

“First time I’ve ever won in front of my parents,” she said, after celebrating her father’s 53rd birthday the day prior.

Korda’s victory was the final at the Four Seasons Golf and Sports Club in Orlando. Other winners included Ji Eun-hee and Gaby Lopez.

Brooke Henderson has had success at the Four Seasons as well. She never finished outside the top 10 at the season opener, notching a T6 in 2019, a T4 in 2020, and 9th in 2021. She’s now hoping the early-season momentum will continue at Lake Nona.

With a corporate changeover for the title sponsor, the event was moved to Lake Nona starting in 2022.

Lake Nona, a private golf course designed by Tom Fazio, has hosted plenty of big-time amateur events in the past, plus the PGA Tour-sanctioned Tavistock Cup four times.

Notable residents include Sorenstam, Canadian Lorie Kane, Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter, and Lydia Ko.

The purse is $1.5 million, which was bumped from $1.2 million in December.

This is the first of three events on the LPGA Tour’s ‘Florida Swing’ to start the season. After the Tournament of Champions the Tour heads to Boca Raton for the first full-field event of the year (the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio) followed by a new event, the LPGA Drive On Championship in Fort Myers.