Financially punishing! This is how the LPGA Tour’s calendar is being described. The Tour is heading towards its season end, and for many, it brings either relief, pressure, or panic. Many golfers’ careers hinge on a few final tournaments because playing the last few events is how they keep their cards from being revoked. But from events being played in North America earlier to now in Asia, a shift in continents and time zones, the financial implications for certain players can be punitive. Golf insiders raise the same issue.

Matthew Galloway, speaking on the recent episode of The Fried Egg Golf, discussed the issue at length.  “I think the thing that’s kind of frustrating to me is that you have to send players playing for their, you know, kind of careers and lives, have to go out to Hawaii to play this last event. It’s a costly endeavor, and I know there’s players that might not have gone based on the cost structure and everything,” said Galloway to the Fried Egg team.

“There’s kind of always been this A tour and B tour,” Galloway pointed out. “I wish there was a way to really restructure the schedule… to where a player is going to attend it better.”

The problem basically is how these events are structured by the Tour. The LPGA’s holding the LOTTE Championship in Hawaii (which is significantly away from the North American mainland) becomes an inconvenience. And this was slotted immediately before the Asia stretch. Next events spread across South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan.

For top-tier players, already committed to the Asian swing, this sequence might make sense. They can transition smoothly across the Pacific without unnecessary backtracking. But for “bubble players,” or the ones ranked just outside the safety zone, the logistics are brutal. Traveling from the US mainland to Hawaii for a single event, then either returning home or flying to Asia, depending on whether you qualify or not, is not just expensive but also exhausting.

As Meg Adkins noted in the same episode, “It’s very difficult if you’re on the bubble and you’re part of that B-ish tour looking to secure your card or figure out what you’re going to be doing next year… It’s a tough trip to make when you’re not going over to Asia, when you’re not qualified for anything in Asia — just a one-off — and you miss the cut and it’s like, all right, well, that was an expensive one.”

Let’s look closely at the logistics for all of it to make more sense.

The flight from Hawaii to Shanghai takes roughly 12 hours. But if you factor in the 18-hour time differences across the international date line, players don’t effectively arrive in China or any other Asian country until about 30 hours after departing. Even for those with secured status, that kind of travel wreaks havoc. This was the reason the LPGA itself began offering travel stipends for Hawaii events in 2023, specifically to help lower-ranked players.

But what does not really help is how the LPGA is announced two new events this season: The Black Desert Championship in Utah and the Riviera Maya Open in Playa del Carmen.

“This schedule is highlighted by two exciting new events, a new multi-year title for the longest-running non-major tournament on the LPGA Tour, even higher purse sizes, increased benefits that will enhance the athlete experience,” Mollie Marcoux Samaan, ex-LPGA Commissioner, had said.

Restructuring seems to be a common demand among elite players as well. Nelly Korda earlier this year voiced a similar frustration, saying one major change she’d make to the LPGA would be improving the “flow of the schedule.” “When we’re on the West Coast, having a flow in the West Coast schedule, having all our events aligned so we’re not traveling from coast to coast in the U.S. would help,” Korda said

One look at the condensed schedule will make sense of what the World No. 2 means. The LPGA calendar opens with two events in Florida, jumps to Asia, then swings back to Texas, Utah, and Mexico before briefly stopping in New Jersey. And then of course, the last leg again will be conducted in Asia. The tour visits 14 US states and 11 countries in total. This simply does not make sense. For anyone, this constant coast-to-coast shift risks adding unnecessary cost, jet lag, and logistical headaches.

This was partly the reason Korda, a few weeks back, emphasized that she would focus on her resting period, rather than being continuously on the course. Then there is Lexi Thompson, who preferred a semi-retirement instead of playing a full schedule. Her playing events are now limited to just 10 a year.

If elite players like her can voice their struggles, then one can only imagine the problems faced by other players on the fringes. But changes can be expected from next year.

Craig Kessler set to improve LPGA schedule

As conversations regarding the Tour’s tiring schedule dominate the LPGA landscape, new commissioner Craig Kessler has acknowledged that the tour’s schedule remains a “critical” and complex issue. But he is set to resolve it.

Speaking after unveiling a preliminary version of the 2026 calendar in September, Kessler said he’s proud of the progress that has been made. “We’re not ping-ponging our players across the country and the world as much as we have in the past,” he said.

However, the back half of the season is still a sticking point. While the Dow Championship and Meijer LPGA Classic in Michigan will now be held back-to-back, Kessler admits, “the routing is not great”. This will lead to the three majors packed into a grueling six-week stretch, leaving little recovery time for players.

“The schedule is critical,” Kessler said. “But it’s not solvable overnight because you’re locked into geographies, multiyear agreements, and you can’t unwind everything at once. But as we think about ’27, ’28, ’29, we see a path to something even better than where we are for next year.”