LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux’s Final Year: What Went Wrong & Right in 2024 For Women’s Golf

The 2024 LPGA Tour season has seen lots of highs and lows. From sponsorship issues and major retirements to a boost in viewership and extension of contracts, it has been a rollercoaster ride for LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux & co.

But it seems that Mollie’s journey with the LPGA Tour is coming to an end. A few minutes ago, reports came in that Mollie Marcoux Samaan will step down as the commissioner of the LPGA Tour in January 2025. It comes as a shock in the golf community as women’s golf saw a lot of growth under her regime.

With her departure confirmed, we will take a look at the best and worst that has happened in the LPGA Tour 2024 season led by Mollie Marcoux.

Low viewership in the U.S. Women’s Open 2024

The 2023 U.S. Women’s Open was a major broadcast hit. The tournament saw the highest viewership in 9 years with 1.58 million viewers worldwide tuning in to the tournament. Everyone was expecting this year to be bigger and better, but things didn’t go as planned. The 2024 U.S. Women’s Open saw a nearly 31% drop in television viewers on the final day of the event. Only 943,000 golf fans had watched the action from the final round live on television. That was 637,000 less than the audience from last year.

Increased attendance in the U.S. Women’s Open 2024

While fans watching on television drastically dropped, those attending the tournament on course increased a lot. The 2024 U.S. Women’s Open had the highest attendance recorded since 2015. In 2015, the Lancaster Country Club had a total of 135,000 fans on course to watch the tournament. This year, the same major event got close to the attendance figures from 2015. While the U.S. Golf Association didn’t release any specific details about the attendance, they did confirm that the event had the best attendance it has seen in 9 years.

LPGA event snubbed from TV time

In April 2024, Nelly Korda was heading for her 3rd straight LPGA Tour win. During the final round of the Ford Championship 2024, Korda was going toe-to-toe with Hira Naveed in an exciting contest worth every broadcast minute. However, the entire round only got 45 minutes of coverage as the Golf Channel opted for the PGA Tour Champions’ Galleri Classic 2024 instead. This raised a lot of questions in the golf community as everyone questioned why a Champions event deserved more coverage time than the record-breaking Nelly Korda tournament. What was even more concerning was that the entirety of 45 minutes of broadcast was bombarded with every commercial known to mankind. This was not the first time the broadcast network had not given importance to an LPGA event. The 2023 U.S. Women’s Open was snubbed in favor of the QBE Shootout. The issue was not questioned back then as Nelly Korda was not in the picture during the event.

Nelly Korda’s 5th straight win gets record viewership

Nelly Korda’s amazing run from January to April 2024 put her in the LPGA record books. The world no. 1 won 5 straight Tour events after she captured the 2024 Chevron Championship on April 21st. She received a lot of support on and off course during her wild run. As reported by Golf Monthly, 1.9 million viewers worldwide tuned in to watch the 15x LPGA Tour winner capture the Chevron Championship this season. This was a record number of viewers for the tournament in over a decade.

Same issues as the PGA Tour

The pace of play has been a major concern for the PGA Tour since the beginning of the season. Women’s golf also faced similar issues. Slow players have often disturbed the flow of play and frustrated many of their fellow pros. While not an LPGA event, the most recent incident of slow play came from an LET event a few days ago. Andalucia Open de Espana which ended last week saw the winner of the tournament waste a ridiculous amount of time during the 15th hole of the final round. We are talking about the Spanish pro; Carlota Ciganda. Even though she won the event, a video shared on X showed her taking 1 minute and 25 seconds to hit the ball. That is 45 seconds more than the 40 seconds allotted by the regulatory board in golf. Similar instances of slow play have plagued the LPGA Tour throughout the season, frustrating the players who abide by the rules and fans alike.

The wakeup call from WNBA star

The 2024 Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican was one of the most viewed events of the season. But it was not the main tournament that caught everyone’s attention. Instead, the Pro-Am event of the tournament is what excited the fans the most. Why, you ask? Well, it was the magnetic personality of the WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark that drew the audience to tune in. Clark was paired with Nelly Korda and Annika Sorenstam during the event that saw the group lift the title. Korda also lifted the main event title in the tournament, but by then, all of Caitlin Clark’s fans had already disappeared.

The news about Cognizant stepping out as sponsor of the Founder’s Cup had also made a lot of news. So did the CME Group’s extension of sponsorship for the final event of the LPGA season till 2027. Mollie Marcoux’s last year as the commissioner of the LPGA was a mix of highs and lows. But in the end, the LPGA Tour saw a lot of growth and promise for the upcoming season. In her 7 year spell as the commissioner, Marcoux has done a lot of good for the Tour. She has surely made the life of the next authoritative body a lot easier.

What are your views about Mollie Marcoux’s term as the commissioner of the LPGA Tour? Do you think she fulfilled her duties at the help? Share your views in the comments section.