The frequently-quoted line, spoken by Shakespeare’s Juliet, reads like this: “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Its application to Thursday’s stunning, joint announcement by the PGA of America and the LPGA Tour, is appropriate. Beginning in 2015, the LPGA Championship will be renamed the Women’s PGA Championship. The event will not simply continue as one of the women’s tour’s premier events; it will soar to a new level, thanks to a unique and potent collaboration. As announced by LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan and PGA of America Chief Executive Pete Bevacqua, the rechristened event will rotate among major markets, beginning next year at Westchester Country Club near New York.

The announcement was fittingly made in renowned studio 8H of NBC studios in New York. The home of the ever-trendy Saturday Night Live show played host to guests from the NBC network, the LPGA, the PGA of America and the Metropolitan Golf Association. Also in attendance were officials from KPMG, the audit, tax and advisory service that will provide corporate sponsorship of the tournament.

All of this would be big news for the LPGA Tour; that its flagship, major championship is at the center of the focus made the occasion singular. In an instant, women’s professional golf leaped from the moderate anonymity of the Golf Channel to the looking glass of major network presentation.

“What’s powerful to us is the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, one of the majors in women’s golf, is not just going to be a success on the golf course at the major championship level but it’s going to be more of that. It’s going to be a celebration of women’s golf and women in business.”

These words reference a diverse quilt that seemed previously unattainable. After struggling through the first decade of the new millennium, the LPGA Tour appeared to have a future in the dustbin of sporting history. Then Mike Whan arrived on the scene as commissioner and everything changed. Not overnight, mind you, but the wave has grown larger and stronger with each month and each year of Whan’s tenure. The latest announcement is both impressive and suggestive. It is impressive in its magnitude, yet suggestive regarding what Whan might accomplish next.

And yet, there is something bittersweet in the announcement. The city of Rochester, New York, will depart (perhaps temporarily) from the LPGA’s schedule. An event had been held consecutively in the Empire State’s Flower city for over 40 years. One of the strongest, most stable sponsors of the tour will also take (hopefully briefly) a hiatus. Wegman’s Food Markets sponsored a regular-status event from 1998 to 2009. From 2010 to this year, Wegman’s stepped up its support by hosting one of the tour’s five major championships. Whan revealed that a change was in the wind for some time.

“We have known for a while in our negotiations that Wegman’s that that tournament was going to need to make an adjustment and credit to Wegman’s, they gave us years to think about how to transition and it was really classy,” Whan said. “If you can pick a perfect title sponsor, it would be somebody that would give you 40 years of commitment and when they know it’s going to wind down, they give you plenty of time to make sure you transition.”

Rather than focus all attention on what was lost, let’s return to what the LPGA Tour, the PGA of America and KPMG Services have gained. A presence in a major U.S. media markets, a foothold in the women’s game, healthy financial backing, distribution across a major television network and the chance to contest the event over some of the finest golf courses in the land make the Women’s PGA Championship a complete and utter triumph for all of the parties involved.

For Stacy Lewis, one of the top-10 female golfers in the world, the television aspect made all the difference.

“One of the things I’m excited about is the network TV on the weekend,” Lewis said. “That’s one thing, the Golf Channel is great, we get our golf fans there. But until we get outside of the golf and we get our fans that don’t watch the golf fans, get them into our sport and they see us, they see what great athletes we are, that’s when we go to the next level. So that’s what this tournament is going to do.”

In a word, bravo!