Mission Inn Resort & Club: Committed to the Future of Women’s Golf Through a Magic Blend of Old and New
American author and screenwriter Adrienne Posey put it very succinctly: “There is magic in the old and magic in the new; the trick is to successfully combine the two.”
Well, that blend of the old and the new is already being successfully implemented at Mission Inn Resort & Club, one of the oldest resorts in Florida, which is newly owned by MMI Hotel Group and has a strengthened commitment to the growth of women’s golf.
From May 26-28, Mission Inn’s El Campeón Golf Course will host the Epson Tour’s Inova Mission Inn Resort & Club Championship for the fourth straight year, and a field of 144 players will compete for a total purse of $200,000, with $30,000 going to the winner. This is a magical blend: the new faces of women’s golf will be vying for supremacy on a venerable layout with roots dating back to 1917.
The Epson Tour is the official qualifying tour of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). Its mission is to prepare the world’s best female professional golfers for a successful career on the LPGA Tour. Mission Inn is more than happy to play a supporting role.
“We’re a golf resort, and golf is critical to our success and always will be,” said Dominick Buompastore, Vice President of Operations at MMI Hotel Group. “We’re thrilled to be part of this tournament. These (Epson Tour players) are the future of professional golf. That’s really great for us, and we have a contract for future years.”
Early last December, Mission Inn Resort & Club was sold by the Beucher family to MMI Hotel Group, a family operation which is based in Flowood, Mississippi. The Florida resort, located a 35-minute drive northwest of Orlando, had been owned by the Beuchers for 58 years, but they still reside in the area and own some of the lands upon which the facilities are built.
The recently appointed general manager of Mission Inn Resort & Club is a seasoned hospitality professional, Cindy Staley, who was previously general manager at B Resort & Spa in the Lake Buena Vista and Disney Springs area of Orlando. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wisconsin, Staley was hired for the position at Mission Inn by Buompastore and has held senior leadership positions in hospitality for more than 25 years.
Sponsorship Opportunities in Support of the Future of Women’s Golf Still Exist
Staley says there are still a few value-minded sponsorship opportunities for the 4th Inova Mission Inn Resort and Club Championship, May 26-28.
“Our team is offering packages from unique LPGA Epson Tour player experiences in our pro-am golf activities to exclusive partnerships for area businesses who want might wish to activate on the property or entertain customers,” said Staley.
MMI Hotel Group manages several hotels in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas, but its portfolio includes another unique golf facility – The King and Prince Beach & Golf Resort in St. Simons Island, Georgia. Even so, the full-suite hotel management company is eager to beef up the golf operation at Mission Inn Resort & Club.
According to Buompastore, an investment in technology has underpinned the first three months of MMI’s new ownership. This will be followed by a detailed analysis of the two golf courses at Mission Inn and then a strategy on what needs to be done next.
Mission Inn Resort Golf: A Classic Design
Mission Inn’s two championship golf courses are wonderfully complementary. The El Campeón (The Champion) layout, built in 1917 by George O’Neil, is one of the oldest courses in the South with a classic design featuring unusually sharp elevation changes in the typically flat central Florida terrain. It has hosted multiple high school, college, and state professional tournaments.
In contrast, Las Colinas (The Hills) was created in 1992 by former PGA Tour winner Gary Koch, and it lives up to its name with wide fairways rolling over gentle rises. Both courses at Mission Inn feature undulating greens surrounded by tropical vegetation and incorporate large water hazards on many holes.
When the Epson Tour players gather at Mission Inn in late May, they will compete in a 54-hole, stroke-play format on the El Campeón Golf Course for a winner’s check of $30,000. The field will be cut to the low 60 and ties after 36 holes. Two scramble pro-ams, on May 24 and 25, will precede the tournament rounds.
Gina Kim, a 2022 Epson Tour rookie, will defend her title from May 26-28, having won last year’s Inova Mission Inn Resort & Club Championship by two strokes to secure her first professional win. Kim closed with an even-par 73, finishing with an 11-under-par total to go wire-to-wire on the El Campeón Golf Course.
Mission Inn Resort & Club has distinct Spanish Colonial architecture and offers 176 hotel guest rooms, 131 deluxe rooms, 38 club suites, four one-bedroom suites, two two-bedroom suites, and one penthouse suite with three bedrooms.
In addition to the two championship golf courses, the resort also features four restaurants, two lounges, and a poolside bar. Its recreational amenities include tennis, pickleball, jogging, and bicycling trails, volleyball courts, an outdoor pool, a spa, a fitness center, and a marina offering pontoons, bass boats, and kayaks for eco-touring. More than 30,000 square feet of well-appointed indoor and outdoor event space is available for meetings, banquets, holiday parties, weddings, and special occasions.
For more information, please visit missioninnresort.com.
