LPGA Tour Notebook: Former No. 1 Ochoa gives birth to baby boy

Former top-ranked golfer Lorena Ochoa has given birth to her first child, a son.

Ochoa’s brother Alejandro said the baby was born Thursday at 8:58 p.m. in Mexico City and named Pedro Conesa Ochoa. Her husband is Mexican businessman Andres Conesa.

Ochoa won two majors and 27 titles on the LPGA Tour in her eight-year career. She was the No. 1 golfer for three years before she retired in 2010.

The 30-year-old Ochoa has discounted returning to play full-time on the LPGA Tour, but has said she’d like to play one or two tournaments a year. She hosts the LPGA Tour’s annual Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara.

FOUNDERS CUP UNVEILS ENHANCEMENTS: The RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup, an event that focused on the celebration of the LPGA’s “past, present and future” in 2011, will return to Phoenix in 2012 boasting a variety of improvements, LPGA Tour officials have announced. The Founders Cup, which will always remember and respect the 13 women who started the LPGA in 1950, also will feature a special tribute to LPGA “pioneers” who had a major role in creating the organizations in history.

Also new for 2012, the event will expand to a four-day, 72-hole format, to be played March 15-18 at Wildfire Golf Club at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix. And where the players participated for no prize money last year, the event now features a purse of $1.5 million as well as the promise of $500,000 to the LPGA-USGA Girls Golf Program, which focuses on giving young girls the opportunity to learn and enjoy the game. Monies raised from the 2011 tournament funded 40 new Girls Golf sites across the United States and aided 1,500 new participants.

The 2012 event will honor LPGA pioneers Peggy Kirk Bell, Betsy Rawls, Barbara Romack and Mickey Wright. The inaugural event saluted the 13 pioneering women who founded the LPGA in 1950, including Louise Suggs, Marilynn Smith and Shirley Spork, who attended the week-long celebration.

NO SPONSOR IN SPRINGFIELD: The LPGA Tour event in Springfield, Ill., long known as the State Farm Classic, has been canceled after organizers failed to find a new sponsor.

Tournament Executive Director Kate Peters said Friday that the board decided late Thursday to end the event after 36 years. State Farm withdrew as the event title sponsor in February.

Peters said the board had tried to land a new sponsor and had been working with the LPGA. Top-ranked Yani Tseng won the tournament in June.

State Farm considered backing out of the tournament in 2009 but the LPGA and tournament organizers convinced the Bloomington-based insurer to stay on.