KAHUKU — With the pounding surf of the North Shore as a backdrop, Commissioner Carolyn Bivens yesterday stood before cameras to announce a 10-year agreement making the Golf Channel the LPGA's exclusive cable home beginning next year.

But for all the scenic surroundings that touted Hawai'i, what nobody could — or would — say was whether this will be the last tournament at Turtle Bay or, indeed, one of the last events from the state in the coming decade.

As the SBS Open at Turtle Bay tees off the 2009 LPGA season this morning, there is mounting concern that the longest-running LPGA event here is making its aloha appearance.

As Michelle Wie makes her LPGA Tour member debut and a promising group of rookies enters the scene, Hawai'i's best-positioned women's tournament could sadly be bowing out.

The five-year contract with the Seoul Broadcasting System ends with the current tournament and there are reports the LPGA has reached agreement with SBS's competitor, J Golf of the JoongAng Media Network, for a new, exclusive TV deal in Korea. "They have moved Tiffany's from 57th Street in Manhattan to Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn," SBS president, Sang Y. Chun, pointedly told GolfWorld.

There has been no mention of J Golf sponsoring a tournament here and it would be hard to imagine SBS, a 15-year LPGA partner, continuing in a scenario that would be akin to NBC sponsoring a tournament to be shown on Versus. SBS will "absolutely not" renew its sponsorship of the tournament, Chun told GolfWorld.

The LPGA is free to place another sponsor at Turtle Bay, but in these austere times potential sponsors aren't exactly springing forth waving checks. Indeed, the LPGA schedule for the current season is already three tournaments light, one of them the former Fields Open at Ko Olina. The only other Hawai'i tournament this year, the Kapalua LPGA Classic in October, is still without a sponsor.

The SBS and Fields opens had given Hawai'i a one-two punch to start the LPGA season and tout tourism. But if the SBS vanishes, the LPGA will open its calendar somewhere else and the state will lose a valuable marketing platform. This at a time when there is a question about whether the Sony Open in Hawai'i will re-up with the PGA after next year.

Golf Channel President Page Thompson said, "From a television perspective, (Hawai'i) is a beautiful place and the more events they have here the easier it is doing high definition (broadcasts). I think it is a wonderful place to start the season ... but it is their (the LPGA's) decision whether they have events here or not."

Meanwhile, Bivens says, "it is too early to tell" whether there will be a tournament here to start 2010.

But it isn't too early to be concerned.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.