Eiger Marketing Group is new owner of LPGA event in Rogers

The annual LPGA Tour stop at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers will celebrate its 15th anniversary in 2021 with some notable changes.

The Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by Procter & Gamble is under new ownership. Eiger Marketing Group has assumed ownership and operations of the tournament from global sports marketing agency Octagon.

Eiger is a global marketing and event management agency based in Connecticut that owns and/or operates professional golf tournaments in California, Florida and New Jersey. Eiger also operates a number of other sporting and lifestyle events throughout the year, including the Chubb Classic, a mainstay on the PGA Tour Champions in Naples, Fla., since 1988.

Octagon’s office in downtown Bentonville is now an Eiger office. Octagon had seven employees who worked full time on the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship. They have all transitioned to the new company.

“There’s virtually no change locally to the team that works on the LPGA event,” said tournament director Annye DeGrand Fox. She’s now vice president at Eiger. “It’s really just a matter of changing our email addresses.”

DeGrand did not disclose the “when or why” details of the ownership change. In the summer, Eiger hired veteran sports marketing and events executive Andy Bush as a partner. Bush spent more than a decade leading Octagon Golf’s sponsorships, revenue generation and event management business and was executive tournament director of the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship for several years.

Tournament week at Pinnacle Country Club will also be different next year: Sept. 20-26. Traditionally scheduled for June, the event will transition to September 2021 as part of the LPGA Tour’s overall schedule adjustments for the upcoming calendar year.

The Walmart NW Arkansas Championship’s purse is $2.3 million.