Nelly Korda, the leader, shot a 65 in Round 1. The venue was changed, the tradition was preserved, and the prize money has grown by nearly $6 million since 2022. Yet the stands around her at the Chevron Championship told a very different story. And it didn’t go unnoticed by fans and analysts.

“We have to find a solution to the Chevron Championship. I don’t know what that is, but I know this crowd for the most popular female golfer in the world isn’t it,” wrote Monday Q Info on X.

Golfweek’s senior Beth Ann Nichols bluntly shared her live-watching experience, calling it a quiet affair, even when Nelly shot 31 on the back nine. This one sentence captured what the cameras were already showing at Hole 7: an empty space where a crowd should have been.

The numbers give that concern real weight. This is the first year the tournament has moved to Memorial Park, and that move was made specifically to fix the attendance problem. The 2025 edition at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands drew somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 spectators across the week, with reports describing small, scattered crowds and a course layout that made fan movement difficult.

The hope in shifting to a more central, publicly accessible Houston venue that also hosts the PGA Tour’s Houston Open was to replicate the kind of energy that the event generates. So far, through the first two rounds, that has not happened.

What makes it harder to ignore is the investment made in the LPGA Tour this year. The purse is $9 million, up $1 million from 2025. The winner receives $1.35 million. An artificial pool near the 18th hole was built to preserve the winner’s jump tradition, which was natural at Mission Hills in California. All that effort, and the bleachers near Hole 7 were empty during a Korda birdie run.

There is also a broader context worth noting. Television viewership for LPGA majors has been inconsistent. When Nelly Korda won her fifth consecutive LPGA event in 2024, NBC drew 936,000 viewers for the final round, a slight dip from the 941,000 who watched Lilia Vu win the year before. Those are not numbers that suggest a runaway growth story.

The 2025 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship recorded record-low television figures. On-site attendance at top LPGA events averages around 60,000 for an entire week at the elite level, a fraction of what the PGA Tour’s biggest events generate, with the Phoenix Open routinely exceeding 200,000 for the week.

Nelly Korda is currently at -8 through two rounds at Memorial Park, holding a three-shot lead over Patty Tavatanakit and Somi Lee, both at -5. The golf is exactly what this event needs. Whether the crowds will show up for the weekend rounds remains the bigger question hanging over Houston.

The thin crowds at Memorial Park were not just noticed by journalists on the ground. Fans watching online had plenty to say, and most of it pointed to the same frustration.

Fans were not silent upon seeing Nelly Korda’s reality at the Chevron Championship

“Parking for Memorial Park is pretty annoying; the weather hasn’t been the best, and the advertising in Houston has been almost non-existent. I might go Sunday if I have nothing else going on,” said one fan.

Memorial Park’s general admission parking is limited to specific designated lots, with vehicles paying $35 per entry, and the tournament had no visible advertising presence across the city despite it being the first year at a new venue designed to attract exactly this kind of casual, local crowd.

“Exactly! Wish there was more enthusiasm for women’s golf, especially when you have Nelly Korda leading!” chimed in another fan.

Nelly Korda is one of the prominent names in 2026 with a win at the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and three consecutive T2 finishes. Moreover, she is currently leading a $9 million major by three shots, and still, the stands are not filling up.

“The name is a turnoff. The course isn’t championship-caliber. Houston’s weather is unpleasant this late in the spring. Mission Hills wasn’t perfect, but the Dinah Shore had deep community ties that you cannot build from scratch in this era. It’s not too late to go back,” read another reaction.

The Dinah Shore era at Mission Hills Country Club created decades of tradition and loyal crowds. Since moving to Texas in 2023, first to Carlton Woods and then to Memorial Park Golf Course, the event has had a hard time recreating that connection.

“It’s tough to have 3 golf tournaments in 6 weeks. That’s what Houston has between this, the PGA Tour, and the Champions Tour. Love golf but can’t do them all,” a user commented.

The calendar reality is real and largely unavoidable. Houston is hosting its second tour of the year; first, it was the Texas Children’s Houston Open (March 23–29). Also, with the Masters Tournament and RBC Heritage in between.

The fans weren’t going easy. “The solution is to stop pretending it’s a major championship,” was another reaction.

The two rounds still to come at Memorial Park will decide a champion. But the tournament’s bigger challenge is filling the space around that champion with a crowd that matches the occasion.