LPGA commish about mess at season opener: 'frustration is valid … I own that, and I’m sorry'

LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler is speaking out about the debacle that transpired at Lake Nona in Orlando last weekend.

Kessler, in his first full year in this role, was on hand during the week in Florida as unprecedented freezing weather and high winds hit the tour’s season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. He was not, however, there on the weekend when he made the decision Sunday to cancel the final round.

In taking accountability for the decision, Kessler spoke with a few media outlets Tuesday, discussing what went wrong and how he would fix it for the next time.

“I have so much trust and faith in our team at the LPGA,” Kessler told Golf Digest. “To be clear, this was my call. No one else's call. I'd love to be on site Monday through Sunday, 34 weeks a year at every single one of our tournaments, but I think one of the things that makes this tour so special is our incredible team and what brings this tour to life. And again, I have enormous amount of respect for them.”

As circumstances unfolded on Sunday, the decision to cancel the final round began to appear peculiar at best.

World No. 2 Nelly Korda led after 54 holes, and that left players in contention without the opportunity to try to catch her for the victory. Korda earned the $315,000 winner’s purse. After winning seven times in 2024, she was not one of the 29 different winners last year, and this victory came via a weird set of circumstances on Sunday.

Temps Sunday morning were in the mid-20s with winds whipping up to 15 miles per hour. It was slightly warmer by noon but the course appeared more playable. In fact, the celebrities from that portion of the event each played nine holes. The LPGA could’ve postponed the final round to Monday as the tour doesn’t play again for another few weeks when it kicks off its Asia swing. And even if the tour played the next week, that should’ve been a possibility. By noon on Monday, local temperatures in Orlando were around 50 degrees and the sun was out.

“In hindsight, there are a handful of decisions that I wish we had more time to think through and that's certainly one of them,” Kessler said of a Monday finish. “We weren't prepared. We haven't finished on a Monday in five years, but as we think about where we go going forward, we’ll be making sure we've fully thought through a variety of contingency plans, that’s at the top of our list.”

On Tuesday, Kessler sent a memo (copied below), which the tour provided to Golf Digest. One of the things Kessler said that went into his decision to shorten the event was potential injuries to players who were competing in the cold weather. This was never once mentioned as an issue on Sunday.

“One of my jobs is gathering information from all of our stakeholders and using that to make the most informed decision possible,” Kessler said. “I used information from players, caddies, staff, grounds crew, partners, and given the information I had at the time, it wasn't a clear-cut call. I made the judgment call to call it at 54 holes, frankly, out of fear for potential injury for one of our players.”

Asked to clarify what types of injuries he thought players could sustain, Kessler said “any type of injury that can be caused from hardened ground and from extreme cold. The most obvious could be wrist related, but again, you can think of a variety of injuries that might come about from these types of conditions.”

Most everyone believed players would tee off at some point and the message, which wasn’t consistent, kept changing throughout the day, until ultimately the round was cancelled. The only players who got to play on Sunday were the celebrities. Mardy Fish won the celebrity portion of the tournament, and Annika Sorenstam, playing as a celeb, told Golfweek that she couldn’t understand why the tour players weren’t on the golf course.

Kessler has been on the job almost seven months and has implemented many promising things, enhanced broadcasts and increased purses among them. He’s had an open-door policy with players among sponsors, media, tournament organizers and others. He seems well-liked by tour members, with many of the top-ranked players in the world having expressed gratitude for what he’s done.

This whole mess at Lake Nona, however, is a step back and will be something Kessler will need to make amends for with several constituencies. Kessler has said since he started that trust was one of the most important tenets of his role, and he believes owning this mistake and being transparent will go a long way in learning and moving forward.

“The biggest learning lesson tactically is to think through what's possible and make sure we are totally prepared for even the unthinkable set of situations,” Kessler said. “I think another big lesson learned is that the way we communicate with our fans and with the media needs to be crisp. What we put out needs to be in plain English and be understood by everyone and crisp.

“I think the other big lesson here is that we had some incredible momentum at the LPGA. The last six months have been remarkable and we're going to make mistakes along the way. We will never be perfect.

“Trust is fragile, and I feel like with a subset of the people we care about most, we may have lost some of that trust,” he continued. “We don't take it for granted and we are going to work our tails off to get back to the momentum we've had over the last six months as fast as we can.”