Chevron’s work to make LPGA major more exciting and fun goes well beyond golf shots

THE WOODLANDS, Texas — The Chevron Championship is so much more than an LPGA major. The title sponsor has added many bells and whistles since taking over the tournament in 2022 and moving it to the Houston area in 2023, it all makes perfect sense when everything reputedly is bigger in Texas. It’s a coveted stop on the tour, starting with the Champions Dinner on Monday and finishing with the winner’s jump in the pond at the 18th green on Sunday.

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“We’re all about making this a tournament that loves to give back in addition to providing opportunities for people, kids, etc.,” said Glenn Weckerlin, Chevron’s global director of brand and partner line management. “When we got into this tournament, we used a five-prong approach to do it.”

In addition to what they hope will be a memorable week of golf, Chevron focuses on the community, players, fans, The Club at Carlton Woods and their employees.

This major, started in 1972, was the longtime event best known as the “Dinah Shore” in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and had so much history, it was quite a departure for the move to Texas. And that’s one of the reasons Weckerlin hoped to make it a smooth transition.

“Moving to Houston was critical because we wanted to make sure we put it where our biggest employee base was,” he said. “Employees were really critical. We have a huge employee base … and the community is pretty critical for us, and we want to have an impact and use the event to elevate the profile of the people that we're partnering with. We wanted to make sure that the players were proud of it and, you know, it's major, right?”

The Champions Dinner on Monday is one of those traditions that bridges the gap from former winners to defending champion Nelly Korda. Past champions drive Bentleys for the week. All the other players use Cadillacs. There’s a legends and junior event that kicked off the week on Sunday, and Hall of Famers such as Juli Inkster and Amy Alcott are chauffeured in style in a Rolls Royce. All the perks add up.

Weckerlin asked renowned chef Thomas A. Keller to put together the Champions Dinner menu, and he loves that it’s like an annual reunion for all the players. Keller works with the defending champion on everything from appetizers to dessert. Korda put some nice touches on the dinner that honors her Czech heritage.

“He was great,” Korda said of Keller. “I met him at Chevron, and he's been a great supporter of the LPGA. For him to do this, it's so special and so cool.”

Right down to the fruit dumplings for dessert.

“Whenever I'm back in Czech, I'm usually there around my birthday. If I do celebrate that's my birthday cake,” Korda said. “I just love fruit-filled dumplings. That's pretty much what it is. It’s something that I grew up eating and I just really, really love it. My grandma makes it, so probably my grandma’s [are] the best ones I've ever had.”

Speaking of food, another new activation is “A Taste of The Woodlands.” Many local restaurants will be there at the Nicklaus Course, from burgers to Indian food to Tex-Mex.

“We know we have a great golf tournament on the course,” Weckerlin said. “The nice thing about a major is you’ll have fantastic golf with Nelly; the year before we had a playoff with Angel [Lin] and Lilia [Vu]. The challenge is trying to provide something that’s fun for everyone so nobody has to get stuck at home because they’re going to a boring old golf tournament.”

This year has another meaningful addition to tournament week with the presentation of a new award, “The Dinah,” that honors the late Dinah Shore, an honorary member of the LPGA Hall of Fame and founder of this event in 1972. The award, a partnership between Chevron and Golf Digest, will be presented to a visionary leader who exemplifies generosity and dedication to advancing women. The inaugural winner in 2025 is a fitting recipient in former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Shore’s daughter, Melissa Montgomery, is scheduled to attend.

Another notable part of tournament week is a program called the Chevron Challenge, which is centers around the investment in people and the Houston community. The Challenge includes STEM education, diversity and inclusion and women’s excellence. Chevron also works with the LPGA Foundation and has contributed more than $5 million to the community partners in 2023 and 2024 and will add more this year.

For anyone on-site this week, there are so many more things to do than watch the golf.

“We built a bunch of activations and spent millions of dollars because we know everyone isn’t necessarily an avid, diehard, I-have-to-watch-every-shot golf fan,” Weckerlin said. “We have a massive amount of things we do at the golf tournament, so if a family shows up and there are four people, if two want to walk around and follow the golf, that’s great. But we’ve got stuff for the other two to do …. from things in collaboration with the Girls Golf program, to some things we do with golf course superintendents to show kids who might want to grow into a career to work outdoors, to a new one this year where we partnered with the Houston Museum of Science where we show movies on the inside of a massive 50-foot diameter dome throughout the day.”

Scholars attend and work with girls who are there for the programs. There’s a Chevron Fab Lab that emphasizes innovation, learning and inventions. Spectators can use technology and engineering concepts to design their own Nike or Converse shoes. Because the tournament is 54 years old, each day, 54 fans will win custom-designed shoes. There’s a career day and leadership panel, too.

And in continuing to be about people, players in the Chevron Championship don’t have the usual worry about not getting paid if they miss the cut, because Chevron will give each player who misses the weekend $10,000, which should cover travel costs like flights, hotel and meals.

“We needed to do a lot of other things to elevate the event for players, not just to increase the [$7.9 million] purse,” Weckerlin said.

Weckerlin admitted that he’s always sad after the final round is complete on Sunday because he enjoys the week so much. Then, he gets back in a good mood when he realizes he gets to help plan for the next year.

“We’ve got to grow the fan base, and you can't just assume that everybody's going to automatically like golf,” he said. “That may or may not be the case, but, if we can make golf fun, it's the whole point of these.”