Craig Kessler is the man now in charge of steering the LPGA. And on Wednesday ahead of the CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Florida, the newly appointed commissioner rolled into the interview room and offered everyone, as he called it, a peek under the hood.
So, how does Kessler plan to jumpstart the tour’s engine?
At the top of Kessler’s press conference, a PowerPoint slide popped up on a nearby television screen. The title read, “Our Flywheel,” and it mapped out Kessler’s roadmap to long-term success.
“It starts with improving the product,” Kessler explained. “That includes broadcast quality, predictability, building connections between fans and players. When we’re successful at that it leads to two things – the first, stickier fans, and then second, it gives us the ability to run a fan acquisition strategy and drive new eyeballs toward the LPGA. If we’re successful in doing that, there are three really wonderful outcomes – the first is ideally we drive incremental demand to host our tournaments, which drives up purses and our athletes will benefit from tremendously. Second, it helps with our media rights. Third, it helps draw interest from official marketing partners, which, at 9 o’clock on the flywheel, now helps us deliver incremental positive cash, which we reinvest back in the product.
“And the circle of life goes around and around.”
The LPGA, of course, took a big first step Tuesday when it announced that every round of every LPGA event in 2026 would be televised live, mostly on Golf Channel, while significant investments from partners FM and TrackMan will help enhance non-major broadcasts, including a 50% increase in cameras, three times the microphones and four times the number of shot-tracing capabilities, plus more player storytelling and walk-and-talk interviews. In speaking with reporters, Kessler added the importance of creating an audience outside of the broadcasts as well, pointing to F1’s Monday-morning highlight reels that produce millions in views.
Then on Wednesday came the release of the LPGA’s 2026 competition schedule, which featured one fewer tournament but an increase in 10 non-major purses. The total prize fund for the league now eclipses $132 million. Not bad considering that Kessler is barely 100 days into the job. Kessler vowed to optimize the schedule in years to come – creating more drama, adding better venues, he even entertained the possibility of contesting a major championship in golf-crazed Asia – though he also stressed the importance of honoring prior commitments.
“I hope the LPGA is quickly perceived as one of the best partners in all of sports, that we do what we say we will do,” Kessler said.
Arguably the most crucial piece of product improvement is the player. The LPGA can have a thousand cameras, but it also needs stars willing to jump in front of them. During last week’s player meeting at Pelican Golf Club, Kessler requested more buy-in.
“If we ask you to be a global superstar, lean in,” Kessler recalled of his message to players. “Show up in culture everywhere you can. If we ask you to do walk-and-talks, not just you but your caddies, try it.”
Then he asked, “Who’s in?” Virtually every hand in the room went up, though time will tell if every player will follow through.
“It kind of goes case by case,” said Lydia Ko when asked about walk-and-talks specifically, “just because sometimes you’re not really in the position to talk, and you are just trying to focus on what’s next.”
The LPGA, Kessler adds, will invest most of its resources into its best, most marketable and most cooperative players, as it looks to foster both global and regional stars. While he doesn’t want to rely too much on one star, or celebrity-types, Kessler isn’t afraid to take risks, either.
Take last week, for example, as The Annika welcomed not only WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark to participate in the pro-am for the second straight year but also Clark’s ultra-popular Indiana Fever teammates, Sophie Cunningham and Lexie Hull. Then for the tournament, Pelican owner Dan Doyle Jr. extended a sponsor exemption to Kai Trump, the eldest granddaughter of President Donald Trump and an 18-year-old University of Miami signee.
According to a tournament media official, there was a 67% increase, year over year, in media coverage worldwide from Monday through Friday. On Friday alone, there was a 180% increase. The onsite metrics, such as attendance and merch sales, experienced boosts, too.
“We had great crowds these past few days,” said LPGA player Olivia Cowan, who was paired with Trump and played in front of easily the largest gallery in the field, even with Nelly Korda and Charley Hull merely groups ahead. “We just have to build off that and not let these moments go. I think we need to do more outside of golf. It’s obviously quite hard to get a lot of eyeballs on us, but it’s growing, and we’re getting closer. And today, having her out here these two days, and having the people coming out to watch, has definitely improved that.”
Added Hull: “Golf is hard for people to just turn on and watch if you haven’t watched it before, so having that kind of interest of people playing who don’t play the sport, big names coming in, playing the pro-ams, is good for the event.”
But is it good for the tour as a whole? Kessler seems to wonder, as Annika Sorenstam shared a story from last week when she ran into Kessler as he was leaving the course; Kessler, she says, rolled down his window and asked her, “How do we capitalize on this?”
Kessler was asked Wednesday about Trump specifically, and he quickly pivoted to other moments from the tournament, including exciting Sunday finishes by Nataliya Guseva and Lucy Li to lock up their places in the 60-player CME finale.
“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.”
At 3 o’clock on the flywheel was the term, “Stickier Fans.” Kessler shared a story of when he brought his three sons, aged 10, 8 and 6, to this year’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. He told them two things: To go have fun, and to not tell anyone their dad worked for the LPGA. They returned hours later with signed gloves and balls, and a new passion.
“Guess what our kids want to do on the weekend now?” Kessler said. “They want to tune in and watch their favorite LPGA athletes because once you get that taste and connection, you fall in love.”
He’s hoping that anecdote comes true on a much larger scale. If so, that opens doors economically, from sponsorship and marketing dollars to an increase in media rights, income that can be reinvested into the product – and the proverbial wheel keeps spinning.
Kessler attended this year’s FM Championship at TPC Boston, where he walked for nearly an hour with FM CEO Malcolm Roberts. Kessler’s takeaway: “FM is an organization that places bets.”
“Not incremental bets,” Kessler noted, “but thinks about major moves to make a difference in everything that they do. And what I realized during that conversation with Malcolm is that we’re a match made in heaven, our two organizations. What we need are transformational partners who believe in us and are going to take a little bit of risk to take the LPGA to the next level.”
And how does the LPGA know when its reached that next level?
“It’s one of those where you’ll know it when you see it and you’ll feel it,” Kessler added. “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 line, the bar will always move.”