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KUALA LUMPUR, – OCTOBER 31: Lydia Ko of New Zealand makes notes on her yardage book on hole 8 during the second round of the 2025 LPGA, Golf Damen Maybank Championship on October 31, 2025 at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo by Hazrin Yeob Men Shah/Icon Sportswire GOLF: OCT 31 LPGA Maybank Championship EDITORIAL USE ONLY Icon3782510312625
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KUALA LUMPUR, – OCTOBER 31: Lydia Ko of New Zealand makes notes on her yardage book on hole 8 during the second round of the 2025 LPGA, Golf Damen Maybank Championship on October 31, 2025 at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo by Hazrin Yeob Men Shah/Icon Sportswire GOLF: OCT 31 LPGA Maybank Championship EDITORIAL USE ONLY Icon3782510312625
The LPGA’s 2026 season barely got off the ground before it skidded into controversy. Within days of what occurred in Orlando at the $2.1 million event Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions 2026, the tour’s new commissioner, Craig Kessler, stepped forward. He made some decisions that left players frustrated and fans confused. Now, he is out defending himself and opening up about the thought process that went behind the decision.
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“Every 30 minutes, we were providing an update to our players and anybody who was involved in bringing the tournament to life. As I started getting more information, I asked one fundamental question based on the information we were getting. Is there any risk to player safety? And the answer that I got back from some was yes,” Craig Kessler revealed in a No Laying Up Podcast episode.
“And in my mind, as a relatively new commissioner, seven months in, I take very seriously the job of protecting our players. Can you imagine if the player had gone off and had a wrist injury in week one of a very long season? And that for me was sort of the decision point where I said, ‘Look, we cannot put our players at risk.’ I realized in hindsight what I and what we missed was okay, now it’s time to get super creative and think about all the other alternative solutions that are possible.”
The tournament, featuring 39 LPGA winners from the past two years plus celebrities, faced whipping winds Saturday and frigid temperatures Sunday. The Sunday’s plan was to tee off at 10 a.m. and complete the 72 holes by dark. But, as per Craig Kessler, it was a poor decision because of the hardened turf. In the end, Kessler and the team decided to complete the event at 54 holes without playing the last round.
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As a result, Nelly Korda, who was leading at the end of Round 3, won the event. However, this frustrated many golfers, like Lydia Ko. Ko was leading the scoreboard in the first and second rounds. However, a poor back 9 in the third round dropped her to 5th place. She felt like she could have made a comeback in the last round to win the event.
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“We were not prepared fully for Monday,” Craig Kessler told Golfweek, making a public apology about the decision. “In hindsight, if we can do it over again, there are a number of creative solutions that absolutely could have worked. We should have explored those and been more prepared. We weren’t.”
In the No Laying Up Podcast, he clarified that his decision was completely based on player safety. The LPGA team was gathering information from many stakeholders, including golfers, caddies, rules officials, and more. And the team was trying to analyze the information as quickly as possible. When some people ruled out a possibility of injury to golfers, the commissioner decided to complete the event after 3 rounds.
As he pointed out, Kessler is the new LPGA commissioner, having joined in May 2025. So it makes sense for him to be more concerned about player safety than anything else.
He did acknowledge that there were many creative solutions he and the team could have explored. For instance, something like playing, or at least waiting until Monday, would have allowed completing all four rounds. However, it was not all in vain.
Craig Kessler’s learnings from the season-opener incident
The LPGA commissioner said he learned a few things from what happened at the season opener. He admitted the LPGA lacked a “war room” setup with all stakeholders around a table digesting shared information in real time. Things unfolded too quickly on Sunday morning, forcing fragmented information-gathering and rushed decisions, such as the 10 a.m. start amid hardening ground.
Kessler strives to be “highly accessible and completely transparent” with stakeholders, especially players. He also admitted that he has great respect for golfers. From these conversations, he learned that most golfers just want to play golf, and he respects that determination.
The only issue was the injury aspect. But then again, that’s what golfers also like about the LPGA. Craig Kessler said that the golfers appreciate that the tour prioritizes their safety above everything else. He acknowledged that mistakes are bound to happen, but he is ready to learn from them.
The season-opening chaos gave Craig Kessler an early reality check. It forced him to balance competitive integrity with the responsibility of protecting players. How the LPGA applies those lessons may matter just as much as the decision that ended its 2026 debut earlier.