The grade of an LPGA commissioner is largely attached to one thing: the schedule.
How many tournaments are being staged and how big are the purses?
But there’s another bottom line that’s important and less public, and that’s the tour’s operating budget. Multiple sources have confirmed to Golfweek that the tour is slated to lose around $2 million this year. LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said two weeks ago in her annual address that the tour’s total staff had increased by 35 percent in recent years.
The commissioner, who announced on Monday that she’s stepping down on Jan. 9, invested heavily on increasing exposure for the tour but, so far, has come up short in the return. The former Princeton athletic director said she was “building the infrastructure in order to build our global fan base.”
That the tour could lose money at a time of unprecedented growth in women’s sports – especially during a lucrative Solheim Cup year – set off alarm bells for some.
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LPGA Player Director Ashleigh Buhai wasn’t too concerned about the loss, however, saying “you’ve got to spend money to make money.”
“Everybody who comes into a lead position is going to try to do things their own way to make their own mark,” said Buhai, “and sometimes you pull it off, and sometimes you don’t.”
Given the starry headlines of 2024 – with the dynamic one-two punch of Nelly Korda’s seven-win season and Lydia Ko’s fairy-tale run into the LPGA Hall of Fame – some players were surprised to see a schedule come out that showed little growth. Official money for 2025, thus far, is up $3.6 million from last season.
“We’re moving in the right direction all the time, but the schedule is very much major heavy,” Ireland’s Leona Maguire said two weeks ago at the CME Group Tour Championship.
“The purses in the majors do disguise some things, I feel like, and the gap between us and the men seems to be growing rather than us catching up. … There couldn’t possibly have been any better golf played. I’ll just say that.”
As the tour sets out to find new leadership, Tim Erensen of Outlyr, a global sports, event management and lifestyle marketing agency that runs a number of LPGA events, said it’s important to find a leader who can drive corporate support to the tour and its tournaments.
“We need help with marketing partners,” said Erensen, noting the wide gap between the LPGA and PGA Tour in this area.
For former World No. 1 Stacy Lewis, communication needs to be a priority in whoever comes in next.
“You’ve got to make the tournament sponsors, the players, the tournament directors be on the same page more,” said Lewis, “more cohesiveness, more working together across the board. … Everybody’s got to work together for the same goal, and knowing what that goal is is important.”
For Buhai, the three most important areas for players in a commissioner are the ability to build trust, communication and set forth a vision for players.
Stanford grad Andrea Lee was recently elected to the LPGA Board and hopes that as a player-director she can help the tour capitalize more on the moment.
“How can we market the tour better; how can we market the top players in the world a bit better?” Lee asked last month while at the CME.
“With women’s sports overall growing exponentially, the LPGA kind of needs to do the same.”
