Kessler Unveils Bold Vision for LPGA’s Future
Craig Kessler is taking the wheel at the LPGA, and he’s not afraid to show what’s under the hood. The new commissioner shared his roadmap for the tour’s future Wednesday in Naples ahead of the CME Group Tour Championship.
So how exactly does Kessler plan to accelerate the LPGA’s growth?
He kicked off his press conference with a PowerPoint slide titled “Our Flywheel” – a visual representation of his strategy for sustainable 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 took a major first step Tuesday by announcing that every round of every LPGA event in 2026 will be televised live, primarily on Golf Channel. Partners FM and TrackMan are making significant investments to enhance non-major broadcasts with 50% more cameras, triple the microphones, and four times the shot-tracing capabilities. They’re also committed to better player storytelling and more walk-and-talk interviews.
Kessler emphasized creating audience engagement beyond broadcasts too, pointing to F1’s Monday-morning highlight packages that generate millions of views.
The 2026 competition schedule released Wednesday features one fewer tournament but increases purses at 10 non-major events. The total prize fund now tops $132 million – not bad for someone barely 100 days into the job. Kessler promised to optimize future schedules by creating more drama and securing better venues. He even floated the possibility of holding a major championship in golf-mad Asia, while acknowledging the importance of honoring existing 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,” he said.
The most crucial product improvement, though, might be the players themselves. The LPGA can deploy countless cameras, but it needs stars willing to step in front of them. At last week’s player meeting at Pelican Golf Club, Kessler asked for more buy-in.
“If we ask you to be a global superstar, lean in,” Kessler told 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.”
When he asked “Who’s in?” virtually every hand went up. But will they follow through?
“It kind of goes case by case,” Lydia Ko said 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.”
Kessler plans to invest most resources in the tour’s best, most marketable, and most cooperative players. He’s looking to develop both global and regional stars. While he doesn’t want to rely too heavily on any single player or celebrity, he’s not afraid to take calculated risks.
Take last week at The Annika, which welcomed back WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark for the pro-am along with her popular Indiana Fever teammates Sophie Cunningham and Lexie Hull. Tournament owner Dan Doyle Jr. also extended a sponsor exemption to Kai Trump, the 18-year-old University of Miami signee and eldest granddaughter of President Donald Trump.
According to tournament officials, media coverage worldwide jumped 67% year-over-year from Monday through Friday, with Friday alone seeing a 180% increase. Attendance and merchandise sales also spiked.
“We had great crowds these past few days,” said Olivia Cowan, who played alongside Trump in front of easily the largest gallery in the field – even with Nelly Korda and Charley Hull playing just 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.”
Charley Hull added: “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 does this approach benefit the tour as a whole? Kessler seems to be weighing that question. Annika Sorenstam shared that when she ran into Kessler leaving the course last week, he rolled down his window and asked, “How do we capitalize on this?”
When asked specifically about Trump on Wednesday, Kessler pivoted to other tournament highlights, including the exciting Sunday finishes by Nataliya Guseva and Lucy Li to secure their spots 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.”
The “Stickier Fans” concept at 3 o’clock on Kessler’s flywheel might be the key. He shared a story about bringing his three sons – ages 10, 8, and 6 – to this year’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. He told them to have fun and not mention their dad worked for the LPGA. They returned hours later with signed gloves and balls, and a newfound 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.”
That’s the transformation he hopes to see at scale. If successful, it opens economic doors through increased sponsorship, marketing dollars, and media rights – income that can be reinvested into the product, keeping the flywheel spinning.
Kessler walked for nearly an hour with FM CEO Malcolm Roberts at this year’s FM Championship at TPC Boston. His 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.”
So how will the LPGA know when it’s reached that next level?
“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 line, the bar will always move.”
