Mark Your Calendars, Owings Mills Golf Fans, For a Year From This Week

By Amber Woods

The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has announced the inaugural global golf competition, “The International Crown,” will debut July 21-27, 2014, at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills.

The match will feature 32 players from eight countries, all vying for the crown of world’s best golf nation over the course of four days, according to the LPGA.

Four female players will represent each of eight countries competing and will be free of corporate sponsorships, playing for an award of $1.6 million.

The format of the International Crown will feature three days of Four Ball matches wherein countries will be seeded into two brackets with four countries in either bracket.

Each country will play every other country in its bracket over the course of the first three rounds to determine which five countries will advance to Sunday singles play. 

All points from the Four Ball matches will carry over to Sunday’s matches where each country will play a singles match against every other country. The total cumulative points for the four days of competition will be used to determine the overall champion.

After the inaugural event at Caves Valley, the tour will take place every other year, moving to Rich Harvest Farms west of Chicago -- site of the 2009 Solheim Cup in 2016.

The state of Maryland is no stranger to hosting national women's golf events. The LPGA Championship was hosted at Bulle Rock in Havre de Grace from 2005-2009.