The Fortinet Founders Cup Returns to the Bay Area

Menlo Park, August 27, 2025

News Summary

The Fortinet Founders Cup makes a notable return to the Bay Area, held at Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club. This year, the tournament features a significant purse increase and a new local sponsor. Stanford’s Rose Zhang clinches the title, adding to the event’s storied history which honors the LPGA’s founding players. The Bay Area celebrates this return with hopes of revitalizing women’s professional golf in the region, offering fans accessible top-tier competition and showcasing local support.

Menlo Park — The Fortinet Founders Cup Is Back in the Bay Area

Big golf energy returns after a four-year break

The LPGA Tour made a striking Bay Area comeback when the Founders Cup returned to the region, staged at the tidy, tree-lined Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club in Menlo Park from March 19–22, 2025. The return was publicized on a Tuesday and comes after a four-year absence of the regular LPGA Tour stop in the Bay Area.

Sponsor shake-up and a heavier purse

Local cybersecurity firm based in Sunnyvale stepped in as the event’s new multi-year sponsor, though the exact length of that agreement was not disclosed. The event’s purse jumped to $3 million for 2025, up from the $2 million offered this past year. The increased payout and local corporate backing signaled a notable uptick in resources behind the tournament compared with 2024, which ran without a corporate sponsor.

On-course outcomes and local winners

The 2025 edition crowned Stanford’s Rose Zhang as the winner, marking her second professional victory. This finish added another dramatic chapter to the tournament’s resume. The previous year’s champion was Concord native Yealimi Noh, who picked up her first tour victory in 2024 by holding off Jin Young Ko.

Why the Bay Area matters to women’s golf

The Bay Area has not been a stranger to major women’s golf. In the past decade the region hosted the 2023 International Crown at TPC Harding Park and the U.S. Women’s Open in 2021 at the Olympic Club. Going back further, the 2016 U.S. Women’s Open was staged at CordeValle in the Santa Cruz mountains. Still, regular tour stops have been sparse — the last standing recurring LPGA stop before this return was the Mediheal Championship, staged from 2018 through 2021 (with no event in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

The Founders Cup: a tournament with history

The 2025 event was the 15th edition of the Founders Cup, an event established to honor the 13 founding players of the LPGA from 1950. Those founding players are Alice Bauer, Patty Berg, Bettye Danoff, Helen Dettweiler, Marlene Hagge, Helen Hicks, Opal Hill, Betty Jameson, Sally Sessions, Marilynn Smith, Shirley Spork, Louise Suggs, and Babe Zaharias. Over the years the Founders Cup has hopped around the map with previous stops in Arizona, New Jersey, and Florida before landing back in the Bay Area.

League-level perspective

LPGA leadership framed the Fortinet partnership as a meaningful local tie that reconnects pro women’s golf to Northern California. The return to Sharon Heights provides both a competitive stage for top professionals and a stronger Bay Area presence for the tour after several years of rotating major events and gaps in the regular schedule.

What this means for fans and the local golf scene

For local fans, the Founders Cup’s return means easier access to top-level women’s golf without trekking to farther-off majors. For the venue and the region, it’s an opportunity to showcase courses, hospitality, and local backing for women’s sport. And for players, the boosted purse and renewed Bay Area stop add both financial incentive and a chance to perform in a market that has staged marquee events in recent years.

Quick recap

• Event: Founders Cup (15th edition)
• Dates: March 19–22, 2025
• Location: Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club, Menlo Park
• Sponsor: Local multi-year sponsor based in Sunnyvale (term undisclosed)
• Purse: $3 million
• 2025 champion: Rose Zhang (second professional victory)
• Notable past winner: Yealimi Noh (2024, first tour victory)

Event at-a-glance

That’s the play-by-play from Menlo Park: a return that blends local sponsorship, an upgraded purse, and familiar Bay Area stages — all wrapped into a tournament named for the pioneers of women’s professional golf.

Deeper Dive: News & Info About This Topic

HERE Resources

Fortinet Secures Sponsorship of the Founders Cup
LPGA Tour Unveils Ambitious Tournament Schedule
LPGA Tour 2025 Schedule Unveiled with Record Prize Money

Additional Resources

• Mercury News
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Newsweek
• New York Times
• Golf Monthly
• Wikipedia: Ladies Professional Golf Association
• Google Search: LPGA Golf
• Google Scholar: Womens Golf LPGA
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Ladies Professional Golf Association
• Google News: Founders Cup Golf

Author: STAFF HERE BOSTON WRITER

BOSTON STAFF WRITER The BOSTON STAFF WRITER represents the experienced team at HEREBoston.com, your go-to source for actionable local news and information in Boston, Suffolk County, and beyond. Specializing in "news you can use," we cover essential topics like product reviews for personal and business needs, local business directories, politics, real estate trends, neighborhood insights, and state news affecting the area—with deep expertise drawn from years of dedicated reporting and strong community input, including local press releases and business updates. We deliver top reporting on high-value events such as Boston Marathon, Head of the Charles Regatta, and Boston Harborfest. Our coverage extends to key organizations like the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Massachusetts, plus leading businesses in finance, biotech, and insurance that power the local economy such as Fidelity Investments, Biogen, and Liberty Mutual Insurance. As part of the broader HERE network, we provide comprehensive, credible insights into Massachusetts's dynamic landscape.