Women’s sports is booming. The LPGA is finally figuring out how to be a part of it
· Yahoo Sports
The story of the LPGA is 75 years long and filled with generations of icons who pushed the sport forward in their own way. But in a moment when women’s sports is exploding, with the WNBA celebrating a multibillion-dollar TV rights deal and women’s tennis stars rivaling their male counterparts for popularity, the best female golfers in the world spent their offseason celebrating a win that feels like it is from an entirely different era.
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For the first time, the LPGA was able to promise its players and fans that all tournaments would be shown on television live, not on tape delay.
Accomplishing what should have been the bare minimum was an easy win for its new commissioner, Craig Kessler, the 41-year-old former McKinsey consultant tasked with rebuilding the bridges his predecessor burned and guiding the LPGA through a challenging moment.
“We tackled the media rights issue, which is something that many people told us we’d never be able to accomplish,” Kessler said earlier this year, as the LPGA season was beginning. “Live for every round, and a quality broadcast that rivals what you see during major weeks. ”
Kessler arrived a year ago, ready to help the LPGA reinvent itself. Kessler’s experience ranged from years as the chief operating officer of both the PGA of America and Topgolf to a brief stint as the CEO of a plant-based soap company. But he would soon realize the LPGA would be his biggest challenge yet. Because Kessler was handed a tour in flux, tasked with unraveling issues that it has grappled with since its inception.
“It’s frustrating, because we’ve needed the same thing for 50 or 60 years, which is exposure,” said Meg Mallon, a four-time major winner and member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Kessler has reinvigorated players, secured landmark sponsorship deals and already has pieces in place to revamp the LPGA’s schedule. But the reality is that the rookie commissioner’s progress must also be measured against the organization he inherited.
When Kessler came on board, the LPGA was plagued by a lack of resources, uninspired employees and frequent communication breakdowns, according to multiple industry sources who spoke to The Athletic on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about their previous employer. They said that by the end of the tenure of the LPGA’s previous commissioner, Mollie Marcoux Samaan, those issues had led to player distrust and apathy. She announced in December 2024 that she would step down the following month, despite her contract running through 2026. Marcoux Samaan became the CEO of U.S. Squash in February.
“I think sometimes it felt like we had addressed something at the beginning of the year, and it kind of got swept under the rug, and it wasn’t really addressed, or we weren’t even sure if it was being addressed,” said Aline Krauter, a 26-year-old LPGA professional.
For all of the LPGA’s much-needed improvements to be properly executed and make their intended impact, the league must dig even deeper, and Kessler knows it.
“To be able to build what the LPGA has built blew me away in many respects. I think the flip side of that is when you’re forced to be scrappy as an organization, it can create some scar tissue,” Kessler said.
For now, Kessler’s momentum will be judged by sponsorship deals, such as the ones with FM Global and Trackman that did away with tape delays, and breakthrough moments, such as when the world No. 1 Nelly Korda won the U.S. Women’s Open. TV ratings, which show that the first three majors of the season are all up in viewership year-over-year, will paint a picture, too.
But the success of Kessler’s long-term governance will rest in his ability to rebuild the LPGA from the ground up. That is what the organization needs to realize its full potential.
Running an organization such as the LPGA comes with a set of distinct challenges. The tour’s schedule spans three continents, 13 countries and 13 U.S. states. Two extended stretches of the season happen in Asia, where 59 of the LPGA’s 197 active players originate. Global markets and the domestic United States must be simultaneously prioritized for monetary purposes. But the tour must ensure its players are not overwhelmed with illogical travel, such as back-to-back tournaments in Japan and Florida — a real thing Kessler has already put a stop to for 2027.
Mike Whan served as commissioner of the LPGA for 11 years and is credited with expanding the global reach of the tour, keeping it financially afloat and guiding the organization through the COVID-19 pandemic. But Whan stepped away in 2021 for a new role as CEO of the USGA. As female participation in recreational golf soared post-COVID, there was a significant opportunity to channel that growth into momentum for the LPGA.
Marcoux Samaan, the former athletic director at Princeton University, came in as Whan’s successor and preached a plan for transformation within the league. But that is not what panned out.
She may have helped purses on the LPGA Tour reach an all-time high, but several public relations snafus created a tumultuous working environment for both staff members and players. During Samaan’s tenure, the tour saw the departure of a longtime LPGA partner, Cognizant. Terry Duffy, the CEO of another important LPGA sponsor, CME Group, called out LPGA athletes for skipping an important sponsor dinner, saying he was “exceptionally disappointed” in the turnout.
Then, at the 2024 Solheim Cup — the LPGA’s version of the Ryder Cup — outside Washington, D.C., internal dysfunction became visible to the world. Tournament organizers expected an energetic first-tee environment at the biennial event, packed with fans cheering on the U.S. team on home soil. Instead, the grandstands on the opening day appeared half-empty.
“It’s disappointing,” the U.S. captain, Stacy Lewis, said at the time. “It is what it is. You play in these things for years, and things happen. Unfortunately, it was a big one.”
The LPGA was self-owned by a logistical failure to move fans from the off-site parking lots to the golf course via shuttles. As the problem persisted, Marcoux Samaan was nowhere to be found, with both media and fans searching for answers. The tour released a vague statement hours later, vowing to solve the issue for the remainder of the event.
According to one former LPGA employee, Marcoux Samaan gave staff little guidance on how to navigate the PR disaster, and no follow-up meetings or actions were put in place to ensure such an incident would not recur.
“There was a lack of accountability and communication across the board from an executive level,” the former employee said of Marcoux Samaan’s tenure.
The LPGA’s working environment became unsustainable, with the same former staff member describing an everyday “struggle” to “get people to care about the LPGA, including employees.”
Another former employee, who worked under multiple commissioners, pointed to a constant shift in marketing strategy emblematic of the lack of a consistent vision. On the surface, leadership claimed to be working to boost its players’ profiles. But internally, the moves lacked intentionality.
In 2024, the LPGA announced a partnership with Hana Kuma, the creative house co-founded by tennis star Naomi Osaka, to help athletes learn how to brand themselves. According to a longtime LPGA agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his players’ relationships, Hana Kuma met with one athlete over Zoom eight times and in person multiple times. But ultimately, the agency’s slide deck of suggestions included that the player start her own podcast, invite superstars such as Tom Brady or Serena Williams to be guests, and ask her equipment sponsors to fund the project. In other words, branding ideas for A-listers, delivered to golfers just hoping to get in the game.
“It’s really easy to say that we want to invest in content and storytelling, and I think those are the business buzzwords,” the former employee said. “But I think when I was with the tour, there were different ways to check that box, but I don’t necessarily think it was checked with the most investment in it.”
Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, Fla., is the annual host of the LPGA’s season-opening event, the Tournament of Champions. This January, it was Kessler’s first tournament as commissioner.
But what should have been a momentous occasion for Kessler ended with a colossal mistake — one that unfortunately mirrored the character of the LPGA’s previous regime.
The way Kessler exited the mishap said more about his leadership than the incident itself.
As sub-freezing temperatures ripped through Florida, Kessler made the controversial decision to cut the tournament down to 54 holes, a decision that would have been appropriate for a country club’s member-guest tournament, not a professional event with a $2.1 million purse.
At the time, the tour said the move was made because of a lack of an “optimal competitive environment.” Yet players in the celebrity division of the tournament had already teed off that morning. And a Monday finish was not even considered an option. In a statement after the fact, Kessler cited worries about athletes getting injured on “hardened” ground conditions, a reason that was never mentioned at the onset of his decision. Even 72-time LPGA Tour winner Annika Sorenstam, an LPGA loyalist who has her own namesake tournament and is a Lake Nona member, publicly doubted Kessler’s choice.
“What happened during Craig’s first week was so reminiscent,” one former LPGA employee said. “That’s what it felt like. Constant fire drills and constant miscommunication across the board, or just no communication.”
But rather than retreating from the issue or hoping the news cycle would move on quickly, Kessler faced the media, appearing on podcasts and pairing his apologies with a promise to act differently in the future.
“We learned a lot. We will be better communicators than ever before. We’ll be more prepared than ever before. And if we’re ever faced with a similar set of circumstances, we’ll be ready to go,” Kessler said.
Kessler’s response to the Lake Nona controversy was indicative of a consistent trend that shows the commissioner gets it: He is making a concerted effort to be a present leader on tour. From the start of his tenure, players have felt as though Kessler has been a familiar face — one who is visibly jumping into action and listening. And they’re not just saying that. In San Francisco at the Founders Cup in March, Kessler was on the driving range, greeting players with high fives and hugs. When Haeran Ryu won last month’s Women’s PGA Championship, a major the LPGA does not own or operate, Kessler was among the first faces greeting her.
“I feel like that’s the first thing everyone noticed,” Korda said. “He came up to every athlete. He introduced himself. It’s way more personal for him, which then creates more of a family dynamic of all of us working together to raise a sport, which I think is really important.”
“What Craig has done to elevate our tour already has put a lot of players in a better place,” said Grace Kim, last year’s Evian Championship winner. “It helps us settle our minds a bit.”
Players and industry partners have also felt a noticeable improvement in the tour’s marketing strategy. You can tell because the players themselves are actually excited to be involved. According to Kessler, at the beginning of his tenure, the tour was hard-pressed to find 15 athletes to participate in optional social media content.
“This year we had more than 115 players voluntarily lean in,” he said.
To understand Kessler’s progress as commissioner is to know that the LPGA has long been strapped for resources. Kessler leans into the fact that the LPGA has 200 employees who operate its 34 events.
“If you compare that to the PGA Tour, last I checked, they’ve got close to 1,000 employees to pull off 45 events or so,” he said.
New hires have been made. Kessler brought in Chad Coleman, who helped turn Dude Perfect from a YouTube channel into a full-blown media company, as chief marketing officer. Existing employees have seen shifts in their roles. The LPGA is seeing a cultural revamp, with Kessler leading the charge.
“This may sound trite or corny, but I felt like our first job as a team was to instill a sense of belief,” Kessler said.
The LPGA is ready to hope again, but it’ll have to be earned.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Golf, Golf Majors 2026, Women's Golf
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