Was including Kai Trump in The Annika driven by Gainbridge a mistake? Many have come in support of President Donald Trump’s granddaughter’s exemption from the event. Annika Sorenstam was one of the first to take a stand for herself. Nelly Korda also encouraged her to give it her best shot and try to learn from the experience. Yet, after shooting 18-over in two rounds, it became difficult to defend the 18-year-old. But Craig Kessler still had kind words to say about Trump.

Preceding the 2025 CME Group Tour Championship, the LPGA Tour commissioner joined the press conference for a quick Q&A. During the round of interviews, he was asked how he capitalizes on having names like Caitlin Clark & Kai Trump join the field. Kessler told the reporter, “That’s part of the magic that we’re going to spend a lot of time on over the coming weeks and months. One thing I will tell you is we will have an appetite to take risks and try things.”

“They won’t all work, but when they do and they stick, that’s when we pour gasoline on the fire and continue to double down in those areas.” Based on how the LPGA Tour commissioner responded, he seems to believe that having such high-profile names on the field is a calculated risk. And if it somehow works in their favor, then they try to feed the narrative until it continues to profit the LPGA Tour as a business.

Considering the negative reaction Kai received last week, Craig must assume that she was a risk that didn’t pay off then. But that is actually not the case. When another reporter had the same query, the LPGA Tour boss had a different response.

“Yeah, look, again I mentioned the energy last week with Kai, with Caitlin, with Nelly Korda dropping a shoe, her Nike shoe last week. And by the way, let’s not forget about what happened on Sunday, right, Nataliya jarring one on 18 in order to make it to CME and Lucy Li bogeying 17, slapping herself on her thigh and running to the 18th tee, needing to make a birdie in order to make it to CME, and guess what, she did it.”

Trump’s exemption was certainly a huge talking point last week. But a lot more happened during The Annika that Craig Kessler & the LPGA Tour took advantage of. As he mentioned, the inclusion of Caitlin Clark brought it a lot of viewers. Nelly Korda, revealing the shoe she designed in collaboration with Nike, was also a major headline. In fact, the former world #1 also gifted a pair specially to Clark even before it was available in the market. And everything that happened during the tournament itself.

The point is, there are a lot of positives and negatives to take from everything. And with Trump’s exemption catching so much fire, it was certainly something Kessler & his team could have handled better. That would have helped them turn it into an opportunity. That’s what he talked about next.

“So our job is to find the right holistic, balanced set of stories to tell so that our fans get excited week-to-week. If we are reliant on one person, whether it’s a star or a celebrity, to carry the weight of the Tour on their backs, I think we’ve missed the boat. What last week proved is that there’s so much magic happening on the LPGA, and we have to bring all of it to life.”

Staying true to his nature as a businessman, he viewed everything in terms of marketability. And as he mentioned, what happened regarding Caitlin Clark & Kai Trump, he & his team “missed the boat” on them. Had they strategized on approaching them better, then the community’s perception of the situation might have been different. Nevertheless, Kessler is still new to the profile, having only joined the LPGA Tour a few months ago. With time, he will learn to be better prepared.

That being said, it’s not like Craig Kessler isn’t a quick learner. In fact, he has already picked up a few things pretty quickly from Annika and went to action within hours. Let’s see how he has already changed the landscape of women’s golf.

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How has Craig Kessler ensured fans will enjoy Kai Trump’s next LPGA Tour appearance more?

The biggest question across social media when watching The Annika driven by Gainbridge 2025, was: Where is Kai Trump? For the two days she played she was mostly missing from broadcast. So were big stars like Nelly Korda, Charley Hull, and Lexi Thompson. That is because the Golf Channel had decided to cut short the LPGA Tour broadcast. Instead, they were showing the live PGA Tour FedEx Cup Fall event. And that infuriated the fans.

After seeing what happened, Craig Kessler immediately got into action mode. A few days after the incident, the LPGA Tour commissioner made a major announcement. He confirmed that they had struck a new deal with the Golf Channel. This ensured that all rounds of every event from 2026 onwards will be broadcast live. The field will also have more cameras & microphones, slow-motion cameras, and drone coverage. This received a lot of support from the LPGA Tour pros, including Jessica Korda. So it’s evident that Craig Kessler knows what he is doing. If he ends up inviting Kai Trump back to an event at some point, then fans should trust the process.