Mollie Marcoux Samaan, Commissioner of the LPGA Tour at the HSBC Women’s World Championship at Sentosa Golf Club, Singapore. (Photo by Alex Burstow/Getty Images)
LPGA Tour Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan visited Asia for the very first time for the HSBC Women’s World Championship. ParGolf took the opportunity to have a zoom chat with this very versatile chief of the foremost women’s tour in the world to learn her plans for the tour’s future.
PG: Last year this time you were still in discussion to becoming the LPGA commissioner. What was it that interested you in this opportunity as commissioner of the LPGA?
Mollie Marcoux Samaan: When this opportunity presented itself to me, it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because I think there’s so much momentum in women’s golf, and I believe in golf and the power of golf, and I believe in our athletes. I’ve been a big fan of the LPGA since I was a little girl.
I saw this as this moment in time to really change mindsets around women’s golf, and to really inspire the next generation of young girls and women through our game and through our amazing athletes.
I think there is tremendous interest in women’s sports right now, and there’s this fundamental shift in how people are viewing our athletes. They’re the main show in many, many forums.
I’m just really excited to be a part of that and to be able to showcase and highlight the talent and the opportunity for growth and change.
PG: The Tour like all other sports has taken a hit during the pandemic. How do you feel the tour has been able to manage these last two years and is the tour finally coming out of the other side of this difficulty?
Mollie Marcoux Samaan: Obviously, goes without saying, COVID has been extremely challenging for every sports organisation. Surprisingly and shockingly, we entered the
pandemic at something around low US$70 million in purses. I think in 2019 we had $67 million in purses. And now, in 2022, through the pandemic, we’re in US$90.2 million in purses.
We have 34 events on our 2022 LPGA calendar with two new events, one being the JTBC Championship at Palos Verdes in Los Angeles and the other being the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G in Cincinnati.
To see the women, play, to get back to some semblance of order, not in the way that they normally do it, has been remarkable. There’s a tremendous amount of gratitude from our players. There is a tremendous amount of optimism for the future. They’re just an amazing group. I think, despite the many challenges in the world and the hardship of COVID, the LPGA has come out ready to take that next step.
Mollie Marcoux Samaan has outlined her plans for the future of the tour. Photo: LPGA Tour
PG: What’s your vision for the beginning of your commissionership?
Mollie Marcoux Samaan: We have six pillars that we’re working off on. One is to provide the very best schedule with the highest possible purses where our women can make the best living, commensurate with their world-class talent, but also where our partners are able to use our platform to push their company values and their agendas and their ways of thinking about changing the world.
We also are really in tune to this idea of player excellence and player performance, and actual LPGA professional experience, and the staff experience. So how do we create an environment for everyone within our ecosystem to reach their own peak performance?
That goes to the things I just talked about, making it as easy as possible for our women to get the most sleep that they need, to eat properly when they come to tournaments, to have the administration taking care of them so they can focus on being the best that they can be.
Performance excellence is important. We’re really focused on getting the world to know our athletes better, not just as best in the world on the golf course, but also for the work that they do off the golf course to inspire young girls, to provide help in various charities, whatever else it is they’re passionate about, and to just be role models to so many people. I think our goal is to focus on marketing, communications, media, technology, to bring our players to the world.
We’re also really in tune to this idea that golf is a gift and like to give this game to more people. We call it changing the face of the game. The industry is calling this make golf your thing, and we’re trying to work to give the game to people who might not otherwise feel comfortable playing the game or might not have the financial resources to play.
The fifth goal is this integration of all parts of the LPGA. The LPGA is driven by the LPGA Tour, but we also have this impactful foundation which focuses on our USGA LPGA girls golf program where we’re bringing the game to hundreds and thousands of kids a year through the girls’ golf program, through our leadership academies.
We also have a very robust women’s amateur program. And then we have this remarkable LPGA professionals. We have over 1,800 women in our LPGA professional program who are teaching the game to, as I said, tens of thousands of people.
An example of that is bringing our LPGA professionals onto our broadcast and having them analyse our players’ swings and give our audience and our fans an opportunity to learn more about the golf swing, because we all know that’s something we’re constantly trying to tackle, myself included.
The sixth pillar is to build a sustainable future for the LPGA. How do we think about this as thriving rather than just surviving? Over the last few years, that’s what the LPGA has seen, getting to some of these remarkable numbers: US$10 million for the U.S. Open, some 12 tournaments increased their purse this year, CME going to US$2 million for the winner and US$40,000 if you make the CME Championship.
So, things like that, the Aon Risk Reward, which is a phenomenal program, and then just continuing to have more sponsors who see the value in our players. Thinking creatively about how we build that overall sustainable infrastructure for the LPGA.
Jin Young Ko of Korea is presented the Rolex Player of the Year trophy by LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan. Ko also won the 2022 HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
PG: Any there any plans to increase the number of tournaments in Asia?
Mollie Marcoux Samaan: We’re a global tour, and we’re proud of that. You can imagine traveling and then going into different time zones, and you need to be able to get the right rest. We’re working on how to give them tips to do that. Right now, we’re talking to partners around the globe. We love playing in Asia. It’s something that the players look forward to. They’ve been raving about the Asian Swing.
We’re constantly evaluating the geographic flow of our entire tour. We have a tremendous team working in Korea, and obviously our team in the U.S., is constantly looking at various opportunities. We also work closely with IMG internationally. We are always exploring different opportunities, nothing that I can announce right now, but we certainly are fully engaged in those conversations, and we love playing all over the world.
PG: What is the tour’s working relationship like with the Ladies European Tour? How is the partnership with the LET coming along?
Mollie Marcoux Samaan: It’s been a phenomenal partnership. They have tremendous leadership there in Alex Armas and her team. They’re a small but mighty team. Our team has been digging in with them and sharing best practices and supporting them along the way.
The LET, like the LPGA, has grown significantly since the joint venture occurred. I think they were at somewhere around US$11 million in purses in 2019, and they’re going to be at over US$20 -US$23 million in 2022. That is a remarkable number.
I think we’ve helped them grow and get better, and they’ve helped us in the way they approach things and the attitudes that they have. The players from Europe are phenomenal.
I think this idea of global golf is important, and the partnership has been tremendous so far. And we’re just in this joint venture now, and we’ll see what the future holds.
