15 Minutes With LPGA Commissioner Craig Kessler

Given his job title, LPGA Commissioner, you'd assume that someone like Craig Kessler is quite imposing, when in fact he's very approachable and carries this calming air of familiarity with him.

We'd met briefly at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship in Frisco, when he was still COO at the PGA of America, but I've been eager to schedule our first official Skratch X LPGA Commissioner sit down since our exit interview with Mollie Marcoux Samaan before she stepped down from the position in January.

Since taking over as commissioner, Craig Kessler has become one of the most important faces in golf. He's been on a world tour in the roughly 120 days since he took up his post, and he's quickly gotten to work.

Kessler's not-so-shortlist includes: his recent announcement of a historic shift in women's golf broadcasting coverage; working out a partnership with the Ladies European Tour and Golf Saudi to keep the LPGA at one of the most famed venues in our sport; approving an age waiver for a standout teen who will have the opportunity to earn her LPGA membership for 2026; and birnging on a new pathway for professionals and amateurs to play on the Epson Tour through a new virtual golf competition.

It's an impressive lineup of what I, and many others who cover women's golf, would consider accomplishments. He inherited a lot of partnerships that he's beginning to forge new paths with and bringing in different opportunities to fit in the agenda he has for this organization. He's breathing new life into this tour that has felt deflated at times—and I've been dying to talk to him about his continued plans.

The time finally came on the Monday of the CME Group Tour Championship, the final event of the season, just hours before the Rolex LPGA Awards—Kessler's first as commissioner.

The Awards are a night of celebration for the players, both past and present, partners, Tour staff, media, the collective that keeps the women's golf engine running. It's busy day for all, but especially for the man at the helm—it was kind of like his coming out party.

Fifteen minutes. That's all I had with Kessler, but that's all I needed. (For now).

He walked in with two of his LPGA staffers and made small talk as we found quiet corner of the Ritz Carlton Naples where we sat down 60 Minutes-style. He met each question a with concise answer. He didn't rush through anything, making the 15 minutes we had feel like 30, and it was appreciated.

What Kessler revealed to me was that he intends to stick with his game plan. Kessler wants to build trust, with players, fans, and media and I believe he's sincere in that.

I walked away from our brief time together feeling hopeful that this is a person who believes what he's saying and he's going to try. I don't think he's naive about what he's up against and he's going to fight like hell to get women's golf on the right track.

My Full Conversation With LPGA Commissioner Craig Kessler

ADDIE PARKER: I just want to get a temperature check. How are you feeling? It's been about four months going on five months. How are you feeling about the new gig?

CRAIG KESSLER: I'm having more fun professionally than I've ever had. I feel like I'm a part of a team that is motivated, fired up. Our partners have come in and big ways to help us. Our athletes are showing up. I'm honestly thrilled to be here.

AP: What excites you about women's golf right now?

CK: There are few things that excite me. First, having now had a chance to meet many of our athletes, their stories are incredible. And by the way, they're incredible people, not just athletes. And I think when the rest of the world gets a taste, gets a chance to hear their stories, they will fall in love just as I have.

The second thing that gets me really excited is the level of support that we've seen pour in from partners like Rolex and from Golf Channel, Trackman, I could run down the list. And what these investments will fundamentally do is change the trajectory of the LPGA for many years to come.

AP: So you mentioned Trackman. I just saw that you partnered with NEXT Golf, this virtual golf simulator kind of excursion that you guys are about to go on. Talk to me a little bit about that and how that came about.

CK: Look, as a guy who has a background spending many years at Top Golf, one of the things that I've learned is there are many ways to grow the game of golf.

For some, it's more exposure to a traditional green grass golf course. To others, it could be Top Golf or Putt Shark or Pop Stroke. And Trackman is actually building something pretty remarkable. They have thousands of hitting bays and simulators all over the world. And they've got a vision to integrate our players, our data, our courses into what they're doing. And if we're able to bring that to life, that just feels like a win win win for everybody involved.

AP: I want to pivot just a bit. We have some big news coming out this week. The schedule that I think you have worked tirelessly on. Let's talk about this West Coast swing. You've mentioned California and the West Coast quite a bit. Why is it so important to bring back the LPGA Tour and really focus on that part of the country?

CK: Well, the schedule in many ways is the backbone of our product. It's where we are and how we show up. We talk about three things routing, courses and purses. And we're trying to get better on all three of those dimensions. The West Coast Swing is key to what we're trying to do. There are golf fans, like you wouldn't believe on the West Coast, and for us to bring the Founder's Cup to Sharon Heights, which is a stone's throw away from the Stanford University campus. What a home run.

And for us to bring our co-sanctioned event with the LET and also Golf Saudi to Shadow Creek in Las Vegas. Shadow Creek, in my opinion, is like the eighth wonder of the world. It is a unbelievable golf course. This is a part of the country that matters a lot for women's golf, and we're excited to spend time there in 2026.

AP: You touched on Shadow Creek, this co-sanctioned event with LET in Golf Saudi. This feels like it's been kind of a long time coming for the tour of getting involved with what LET has already been doing since 2020. How important was it for you to kind of close this deal, have something in place before the end of the year?

CK: This partnership is very important to us. We've been in a joint venture and a partnership with the Ladies European Tour for a while, and they've worked collaboratively with Golf Saudi for quite a while. So what an opportunity for us to try and unite at least a large portion of the women's golf ecosystem. We're really excited to see where this takes us.

AP: There's another change that I also noticed was Black Desert in Utah. I just went for the PGA Tour Bank of Utah Championship. It's a stunning golf course but you have now announced that they're going to be a media partnership with you guys. Can you touch on what that will kind of look like?

CK: Well, let me express my gratitude to Black Desert. What Black Desert did is they took a step back and ask themselves, how can we have the biggest impact on the LPGA going forward? Hosting a tournament is wonderful. And to all of our partners who do that, thank you. None of this happens without their support. Black Desert also realized there was a chance to convert their sponsorship and their support from hosting a tournament into becoming what we call an official marketing partner.

And that will also allow us to do all sorts of things. And so we agreed that made sense going forward to bring this to life. The LPGA will host its first sponsor day for some of the key executives at many of our partner organizations. We'll do it next spring, and we're actually going to host it at Black Desert in Utah.

AP: What are some other changes that we can expect [on the schedule]? What are some things that are staying the same?

CK: In the first half of the year what everyone should look for is optimized routing. So our athletes will actually travel the world in a very logical flow. That's important not just for fans, but also for our athletes, so that they can rest and recover and bring their A-game week in and week out. We've also touched on some of the elevated courses that will be playing Sharon Heights, Shadow Creek, and all of the courses that will be coming back to, from the 2025 schedule. So that's what you have to look forward to in the first half of next year.

AP: What else can you tell us?

I'd also say as we gear up for our Asia swings, you'll see us play some remarkable golf courses and go back to some that, you're used to seeing. The opportunity in Asia is endless. I took my first trip this year to Korea. I was there for International Crown. I mean, thousands of fans every day on the golf course. You go into these shopping malls where there's half a floor dedicated to lifestyle brands all around golf, many of it just women's golf clothing companies. So, look for us to spend real time leaning in to the Asia part of our tour as well.

AP: Let's touch on this global impact that this tour has, which you've talked about being an asset to this tour, but I think we all kind of notice that the translation here stateside is a little bit different. What are some of the things that you have noticed, especially after your first trip, that you can maybe start to emulate over here in the States, getting American fans more incentivized to really buy into what the tour is doing?

CK: You know, I look forward to spending even more time in Asia. But here's what I'll tell you after my first trip. The energy is electric. I'll never forget standing on the first tee at Crown with a globally recognized Billboard DJ playing incredible tunes and screaming out the names of our players from all over the world and watching our athletes dance and sing along to the walk up songs that they had chosen for themselves.

It's that type of energy that gets players and fans excited, and I'd love to translate some of that back to the events that maybe don't have that in the US. Yeah, I think let's continue on about this.

AP: We have a Solheim Cup this year in 2026. What are you looking forward to about experiencing that as commissioner?

CK: I think team golf is what brings out the best in our athletes. There's something cool, whether you're a fan or an athlete, about putting on your country's flag or painting your face with your country's colors and just feeling it in your bones. The Solheim Cup is arguably the best expression of that in women's golf. I can't wait to head over to the Netherlands and cheer on both the European and the American teams. It's going to be a spectacle.

AP: How much player input do you get when building a schedule? I know you have quite a few player meetings where you were touching base and making sure that you're communicating with them, but how much are you really kind of taking in consideration with when you meet with them, and to building something like the 2026 schedule?

CK: You know, when I first started the job a handful of months ago, I said publicly and privately, trust is the first, second and third priority. It's the root of everything. And once it's gone, it's impossible to make progress. And so I spent an enormous amount of time every single week talking to our players, whether it's text messages, phone calls.

In fact, somebody once asked me, what's your favorite thing to do when you're out on tour? The answer may sound silly, but rain delays for me are my favorite, and here's why. All the players and their caddies come back. They're in one place in the clubhouse, and I get the chance, a chance to spend time with all of them.

It's a long way of saying before any major decision, know that the team and I spend enormous time getting player feedback because they're the the root of our tour.

AP: You've talked about these four pillars that you have when building and growing this tour. Can you reiterate those for our Skratch followers just what they are and why they mean so much to you?

CK: The four pillars are simple. It's all about building trust. It's about creating fans that don't just watch the LPGA, but they root and cheer for the LPGA. It's creating more visibility for our athletes. And then finally, it's protecting the financial foundation so that the next 75 years are even more successful than the first.

AP: Would you say you're sticking pretty true to those four, or is it kind of growing as you start to get more acclimated into the role?

CK: You know, I'm proud of our team. I would say almost everything we do touches at least one of those four pillars. And in many instances, it goes beyond what I found is when a team has values or a set of filters to run all their decisions through. It makes it really easy to prioritize what makes sense to pursue and what doesn't. And those four pillars have been really useful to us.

AP: As we close out an incredible 2025 season that we've seen a lot of parity on with all the different consecutive winners. What does that say to you as the commissioner of this organization? Winning out here is kind of like the Hunger Games, no?

CK: May the odds forever be in your favor. Is that what the guy says?

AP: [Laugh.] I think so.

CK: Here's what the parity tells me. There are two groups of folks: fans or folks who are on the fence and thinking about becoming fans. If you're a fan, you were just treated to an unbelievable season. Yeah. Any given Sunday, you show up and you don't know who's going to end up on the top of the leaderboard. And that to me is really, really exciting for the folks who are on the fence. What I think it tells me is give us a shot, like tune in, go spend a minute on Google, check out lpga.com, get to know some of these players, get to know their stories.

And and I'm convinced you will be hooked once you give it a shot. But give it a shot.

AP: What's kind of a message you have for members of the media? What's your hope there in building a new relationship with golf media?

CK: One of the things that has become so clear to me over the last four months is that the media play one of the most important roles in helping us accomplish what we need to, at least as it relates to trust, fans and visibility.

So to those of you out there, including you, Addie, who have taken your precious time to help tell our story, thank you. Keep telling it. Spend time with our athletes doing feature pieces, doing human interest stories, not just about what happens on the course, but get to know our athletes off the course, their passions, what inspires them. The more the media can lean in and help create that connection between fans and players, I think the future will be brighter.

AP: What's the one thing you're really looking forward to in 2026?

CK: Let me tell you what's going to happen in 2026. We have spent so much time listening to our fans, and one of the consistent things they tell us is they desperately want us to elevate the quality of our broadcast, and we're going to do it. Thanks to sponsorship from FM, support from the Golf Channel and from Trackman, 2026 will begin a brand new era for the quality of the LPGA broadcast.

Let me give you a few examples. 50% more cameras, three times more microphones, four times the amount of shot tracing. Amazing storytelling that will happen both on air and off air to humanize our athletes and create that fan connection. We've never had this before.

Tune in next year and I think you're going to love what you see.