NAPLES, Fla. — LPGA Tour Commissioner Craig Kessler on Wednesday launched a “flywheel” and talked about his “Venn diagram” as he introduced the 2026 schedule, charting a roadmap for a way the tour will seize the rise of the ladies’s sport.
The LPGA schedule options 31 official tournaments with a file prize pool of simply over $128.5 million. Fourteen tournaments raised between $100,000 and $2 million.
The LPGA additionally co-sanctioned the Golf Saudi-funded Women European Tour occasion. The Aramco Collection at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas will exchange match play and the prize cash will enhance from $2 million to $4 million. Kessler didn’t rule out the potential of extra tournaments being held from the Aramco collection.
“If you begin a partnership, it is necessary to return out of the gate sturdy,” Kessler mentioned forward of the season finale, the CME Group Tour Championship. “And when carried out properly, it opens up the likelihood for lots of nice issues to occur, and that is no completely different.”
Kessler, the previous chief working officer of the PGA of America, has solely been within the job for 120 days, however he has introduced excessive vitality to assembly with gamers and sponsors and constructing the teaching employees round him.
His first huge transfer was a partnership with mutual insurance coverage firm FM for a significant improve to broadcast manufacturing. This included a 50% enhance in digicam and shot-tracing expertise, in addition to the power to broadcast all North American tournaments dwell for the primary time.
“We lastly obtained the prospect to broadcast dwell and it was nice for the individuals who have invested in our product,” mentioned Nelly Korda. “I’m excited to see what the long run holds, nevertheless it all relies on nice management, and that’s what we actually have right here on the LPGA.”
The printed upgrades are the primary a part of Kessler’s “flywheel,” which features a schedule with improved geographic move. The hope is that this can generate extra followers, which is able to assist media rights and advertising and marketing companions, and strengthen the money move invested within the product.
“We’re nonetheless – progress inventory, worth inventory, name it what you’ll – and if I am an investor enthusiastic about becoming a member of LPGA as a associate, now could be the time,” he mentioned. “We’re but to achieve our breakthrough second, and if there was ever an opportunity for me to do it as an organization that desires to get behind such a exceptional group, now could be the time.”
Not a lot time has handed since he took over in the summertime, so his schedule seems to be about the identical as final 12 months. He hosted two tournaments in Michigan in consecutive weeks in June earlier than the KPMG Girls’s PGA in Minnesota. Asia is seeing early and late swings once more.
Lengthy-term planning is about making a schedule primarily based on routes, golf programs, and prize cash.
“I hope the LPGA will quickly be acknowledged as the most effective companions in all sports activities,” Kessler mentioned. “We do what we are saying we will do. Now we have to take that into consideration as we ship what we consider is the optimum schedule.”
His Venn diagram (three overlapping circles) describes efficiency, persona, marketability and a participant’s willingness to advertise themselves and the tour.
Kessler mentioned he had two participant conferences the place he mentioned they wanted to do their half.
“And on the finish I requested, ‘Who’s in it?’ And virtually everybody’s hand within the room went up,” he mentioned. “Now it’s our accountability to truly make that occur.”
The LPGA is coming off its most uncommon season during which solely two gamers, Gino Titicle and Miyu Yamashita, gained greater than as soon as. Korda is winless after profitable seven titles a 12 months in the past, however even her stellar season did not assist her construct much more momentum on the LPGA.
There was vitality and optimism, and Kessler was properly conscious that he had an extended approach to go.
“We’re competing in an consideration financial system, and it is not simply in opposition to different sports activities,” Kessler mentioned. “Something that may seize fan consideration, we’re competing in opposition to it. So it is our job to distinguish, be attention-grabbing, and seize fan mindshare in each means doable.”
