GOLF

LPGA names Craig Kessler as new commissioner

9 months ago - Sportingbase

According to David Rumsey of Front Office Sports, the LPGA has named Craig Kessler of San Diego, California as its new commissioner. Kessler replaces Mollie Marcoux Samaan of Ithaca, New York, who held the position from 2021 to 2025.

Kessler becomes the 10th commissioner all-time in the LPGA. He has a bachelor of science at Georgetown University and his Masters in business administration from the Harvard Business School. From 2016 to 2021, Kessler was the Chief Operating Officer for Topgolf, and from 2023 to 2025, was the Chief Operating Officer of the PGA of America.

As the LPGA Commissioner, Kessler is going to make it his mission to make golf more visible on television for fans. One area where he needs to start is to have all five majors on the LPGA shown on television. At the current time, all four rounds of all five majors are shown on television. However, at the Women’s PGA Championship and Chevron Championship, the Golf Channel breaks away from its coverage for the first two rounds to show the PGA Tour for three hours. This means a significant portion of the field do not have the opportunity to play a significant portion of their round on television for the most significant events of the season and this is completely wrong.

According to Sean Zak of golf.com, Kessler has four major goals as commissioner. He wants to build trust (trust with players, sponsors, and fans), increase visibility (realizes that the LPGA is shown a lot less on television than the PGA Tour), build fans (hoping that fans cheer more for players), and build financial future (open to discussing with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund).