LPGA Boss Details Plans For Growth Of Women's Game - And There Is One Area Being Targeted Above All Else This Year

LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan has targeted an increase in fans as the top priority for the women's game in 2024

LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan on the 18th green after the final round of the 2021 CME Group Tour Championship
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Paul Higham's avatar
By
published

LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan has set out her main target for the new season - and that's to get more eyeballs on a unified women's game.

As the 2024 season kicks-off with the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, Marcoux Samaan appeared on the Golf Channel talk about her plans for the year.

Front and centre is the hope to bring more people to the women's game, in terms of boots on the ground at tournaments, watching events on TV and also following the game on social media.

“We’re really digging in on the fans,” Marcoux Samaan said on Golf Central. “We always have the players and the partners at the centre of our equation but also, this year, I think you’ll see a lot of fan growth, both at the tournaments, those following us on social, to the viewership, we’re really investing in growing our fan base.”

The commissioner says that key to the sport's growth is having a unified game, which is why the LPGA and Ladies European Tour are looking to merge to form one entity.

Fractions in the men's game could dilute and damage viewer interest, and the women's game does not want to go down the same road.

The LET already has a relationship with Saudi Arabia in the form of the Aramco Series, so the possibility exists of the Public Investment Fund looking to enter the women's game as it is trying with the men.

After a vote on the LET-LPGA merger due in December was postponed just before the meeting, Marcoux Samaan says talks with the players will continue next week, when the LPGA will “share more information with them” on the vote.

Whether they end up doing a deal with the PIF or not, Marcoux Samaan is keen to keep the sport unified to ensure they are able to attract new viewers and fans.

“Number one, we really believe that an unfractured women’s golf environment is critical to the growth,” she said. 

“Our mission is to be the global leader in women’s professional golf and then, really importantly, to use that platform to elevate and advance women. 

"So any decision that we make on any partnership really goes back to that mission.”

TOPICS
Paul Higham
Paul Higham
Contributor

Paul Higham is a sports journalist with over 20 years of experience in covering most major sporting events for both Sky Sports and BBC Sport. He is currently freelance and covers the golf majors on the BBC Sport website.  Highlights over the years include covering that epic Monday finish in the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor and watching Rory McIlroy produce one of the most dominant Major wins at the 2011 US Open at Congressional. He also writes betting previews and still feels strangely proud of backing Danny Willett when he won the Masters in 2016 - Willett also praised his putting stroke during a media event before the Open at Hoylake. Favourite interviews he's conducted have been with McIlroy, Paul McGinley, Thomas Bjorn, Rickie Fowler and the enigma that is Victor Dubuisson. A big fan of watching any golf from any tour, sadly he spends more time writing about golf than playing these days with two young children, and as a big fair weather golfer claims playing in shorts is worth at least five shots. Being from Liverpool he loves the likes of Hoylake, Birkdale and the stretch of tracks along England's Golf Coast, but would say his favourite courses played are Kingsbarns and Portrush.