Today is the final round of the 2024 LPGA Queen City Championship. It’s being played at TPC’s River Bend Course in Maineville, Ohio this year. Maineville is a suburb on the outskirts of Cincinnati. TPC River Bend is a private golf club under the TPC name umbrella. It’s an Arnold Palmer Design that opened back in 2001. The course itself plays along a hillside overlooking the Little Miami River.
TPC River Bend’s 18th hole
Why is it called the Queen City Championship?
The term Queen City Championship is a nod back to the city of Cincinnati itself. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the name goes as far back as 1819 or even earlier. Civic leaders were looking to boost the reputation of the city touting its grand offerings. Resident E.B. Cooke wrote “The City is, indeed, justly styled the fair Queen of the West: distinguished for order, enterprise, public spirit, and liberality, she stands the wonder of an admiring world.”
The term really stuck when immortalized by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1854, he wrote the poem Catawba Wine. The poem finishes saying And this the song of the vine, This greeting of mine, The winds and the birds shall deliver, To the Queen of the West, In her garlands dressed, On the banks of the Beautiful River.
Who’s leading and in the hunt at the Queen City Championship?
The 2023 Queen City Championship was won by Minjee Lee of Australia. The year’s championship has the international players atop the leaderboard going into the final round. Jeeno Thitikul of Thailand is in first at -18. She is followed closely by world number two Lydia Ko at just one back. World number one Nelly Korda of the United States is in tenth place.