In LPGA chief’s plan to transform tour, 1 goal stands above the rest

NAPLES, Fla. — Craig Kessler and the LPGA want your attention.

The new commissioner understands his tour will have to innovate to grab and keep the eyeballs it desires. It’s a monumental task, to be sure. But Kessler, just 120 days into his run atop the LPGA, has a vision and a plan to elevate his league to a place where it is competing and winning the war against, well, everyone and everything else fighting for your time.

“We compete in the attention economy,” Kessler said Wednesday at Tiburon Golf Club ahead of the CME Group Tour Championship. “It’s not just against other sports. It’s should I put on Netflix? Sould I go out to dinner? Should I hang out with friends? Should I play in the backyard? Should I go play a round of golf? Anything that has the potential to capture a fan’s attention, we are competing against that, so it’s our job to be differentiated, to be interesting, and capture fans’ mind share in every way we possibly can.”

The obvious follow-up question is: How does the LPGA achieve this?

Kessler has harped on his four pillars of strength since he was announced as the commissioner in May: trust, visibility, fans and a secure financial future. In four months, Kessler has already delivered a groundbreaking deal to transform the LPGA’s TV product, brought in Golf Saudi as a sponsor for a new tournament with a $4 million purse and started to rework the schedule to maximize the tour’s ability to grab and hold attention in the United States and globally.

On Wednesday, Kessler offered a peek under the hood at how the LPGA thinks about growth and long-term success. It starts with an improved broadcast. Thanks to a new partnership with FM, Golf Channel and Trackman, every round of every LPGA tournament will be broadcast live next year. The broadcast will feature state-of-the-art technology, 50% more cameras, 30% more mics, drones and more shot-tracing than ever before. Kessler’s “flywheel” of success starts with improving the product, which leads to more fans, growth and money.

Sounds simple. The truth is more complicated.

The improved tournament broadcast is just Step 1 in Kessler’s plan to win the long-term attention battle. He knows that can’t be achieved just by being on Golf Channel every week. That’s a great start, but bigger and bolder things are needed to get the flywheel spinning. Under his leadership, the LPGA will try anything and everything to stand out, capture new fans and generate interest outside the ropes.

“That’s part of the magic that we’re going to spend a lot of time on over the coming weeks and months,” Kessler said. “One thing I will tell you is we will have an appetite to take risk and try things. They won’t all work, but when they do and they stick, that’s when we pour gasoline on the fire and continue to double down in those areas.”

Kessler pointed to last week’s Annika, which had WNBA star Caitlin Clark return for her second pro-am appearance and saw Kai Trump make her LPGA debut as a sponsor’s invite, as swings the LPGA will take and try to capitalize on. But Kessler was quick to note that last week’s buzz around Clark and Trump is also a kind of trap the tour can’t fall into. He wants the LPGA to be carried by several players, not just one big name and not just one-off celebrity appearances.

“So our job is to find the right holistic, balanced set of stories to tell so that our fans get excited week-to-week,” Kessler said. “If we are reliant on one person, whether it’s a star or a celebrity, to carry the weight of the Tour on their backs, I think we’ve missed the boat. What last week proved is that there’s so much magic happening on the LPGA and we have to bring all of it to life.”

This attention-grabbing onslaught that the LPGA plans to enact requires something, though. Yes, the tour will need to show ingenuity and be willing to take risks. But it also needs its best players to become stars who are eager to put themselves out there to help elevate the Tour. Kessler and the LPGA know that marketability and on-course results might not always intersect, but when they do, those are the players the LPGA has to put its weight behind to boost into the larger sports and culture conversation.

“Here’s how we think about stars at the LPGA,” Kessler said. “Think about a Venn diagram with three circles. You have the best players, you have the most marketable players and you have the ones who are actually willing to lean in and do the work. It’s the handful of players at the center of that Venn diagram that we are going to invest our resources against in order to create global superstars and create that player and fan connection.”

Once again, nothing is as simple as it sounds. To achieve this, the LPGA faces a question it must answer to turn an academic vision into concrete reality.

This season on the LPGA has seen just two repeat winners in World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul and Rookie of the Year winner Miyu Yamashita. There have been 29 unique winners. Nelly Korda, who won seven times in 2024, is winless. Charley Hull and Lydia Ko have each won once. The LPGA has depth and parity. But if you want to grab attention and break through to a larger audience, starpower is the natural answer.

But to Kessler, starpower isn’t just about lifting trophies and dominating for 72 holes. That’s important. But it transcends the course. It has to for this plan to work.

“No silver bullets to creating stars, and this is where it takes an ecosystem,” Kessler said. “There are so many examples we can point to, whether it’s what Nelly did by going to the Met Gala or with Sports Illustrated, or Charley going to a state banquet in the UK or some of the recent things she’s done on social. I could take you through a variety of players and things that they have done to show up in culture, not just inside the ropes. Those things make a difference.

“We have done a massive piece of work on our fans. What do fans love and what do fans want to see more of. And one of the pieces of feedback we’re getting is that they want to see our LPGA athletes and stars show up outside the ropes. It’s our job to help enable that.”

Getting players to buy into his vision and plan takes trust. You’ll remember that’s the first pillar. For Kessler, that’s about being in constant communication with his players. He has flown out to their home bases for lunch and rounds of golf. He is constantly texting and calling his players. He wants them to know he has a plan and that, if they trust him and his vision, the LPGA can reach new heights.

So far, Kessler has succeeded in strengthening that first pillar. Lyida Ko lauded his leadership at Tuesday’s press conference. Minjee Lee offered similar praise.

Last week at the Annika, Kessler held a player meeting in which he told his members what is required of them to go where they all envision.

“They asked again what can we do? And we said, here’s what we need you to do. If we ask you to be a global superstar, lean in. Show up in culture everywhere you can. If we ask you to do walk and talks, not just you but your caddies, try it. We need you do your part. And at the end, I asked, who is in? And virtually every hand in the room went up. Now it’s on us to actually bring that to life.”

Kessler is building toward something. A moment. A place in the sports conversation that the LPGA has not previously occupied. He sees how the WNBA and women’s soccer have broken through and believes women’s golf can do the same.

But ask him what the destination is, and Craig Kessler can’t give you anything concrete. That’s by design. Kessler understands the size of the task at hand. The climb will be steep and the path won’t be linear. Innovation and risk-taking will be key to delivering women’s golf its moment.

“It’s one of those where you’ll know it when you see it and you’ll feel it,” Kessler said. “But guess what, even when we get there, we’ll never be totally satisfied because this is an organization, as I mentioned, of continuous improvement, and the bar will always move.”

Does Kessler have your attention?

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