It is true what LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler texted me Saturday as I was watching the JM Eagle LA Championship on television.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Kessler, too, was watching on TV when he received a phone call from Walter Wang. The JM Eagle chairman and CEO was on the way to the standard sponsor interview on Golf Channel during Saturday’s third-round telecast, and he planned to announce a $1 million increase in the purse, effective immediately. He wanted to make sure Kessler was on board with that. After thinking about it for half a millisecond, Kessler agreed.
The JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro is now in its fourth year, and second year being contested at El Caballero Country Club outside Los Angeles. In the 2023, the tournament’s first year, JM Eagle and Plastpro doubled the tournament purse from $1.5 million to $3 million. In 2024, the purse was increased to $3.75 million. With Saturday’s announcement, it goes to $4.75 million, making it the highest purse on the LPGA Tour outside of the major championships and the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.
Founded in 1982, JM Eagle is a manufacturer of plastic pipes for a variety of applications. Plastpro Inc. is a manufacturer of fiberglass doors and entry systems for residential and commercial properties. Shirley Wang, Walter’s wife, is the founder and CEO of Plastpro.
LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler goes into the first major this week with considerable wind at his back.
DANIELLE PARHIZKARAN, Boston Globe Via Getty Images
Based in Los Angeles, Walter and Shirley Wang are heavily involved in philanthropic initiatives across the world through their companies and the Walter and Shirley Wang Foundation. They are both members of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Committee.
“The Wangs are incredible,” Kessler told me Saturday night. “We had a great week together in Los Angeles. They are so generous, and they want to continue to be leaders at the LPGA. It is very inspiring to see sponsors buy in and do things like this.”
Less than a year after being named commissioner, Kessler heads into this week’s first LPGA major of the year, the Chevron Championship in Houston, with considerable wind at his back. Purses for 2027 will exceed $132 million, a 90 percent increase over the last four years. The broadcast situation in the United States is improving thanks to a unique sponsorship program involving insurer FM and Trackman. Every tournament round will now air live on television, with noticeable enhancements.
Furthermore, LPGA players will compete next winter in WTGL, an indoor simulator golf league for women that will join the men’s TGL spearheaded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
Clearly the players are noticing progress and buying in. “I want to give you a proof point that gets me so fired up,” Kessler told Golf Digest last week. “A year ago [before Kessler arrived], when we tried to do media and get our players to buy in, we had to beg to get 15 or so players fired up to do it. The past couple of weeks, we had 115 players each give us an hour of their time to do content. This includes our biggest stars from around the world. That signals to us that our players are fully bought in and are ready to do their part to take this tour to the next level.”
That LPGA players are responding to Kessler’s leadership is no accident. “Craig’s enthusiasm for the sport is authentic – I have never seen someone more prepared for this job,” Liz Moore, the LPGA’s chief legal and technology officer who served as interim commissioner prior to Kessler’s arrival last summer, told D Magazine last month. “He asks a ton of questions, he knows the community, he understands the sport, and he is a relationship person. He’s come in with a lot of ideas, but he also wants to listen and understand.”
Kessler told me Saturday evening, “There’s so much more to come.”
He’s not making that up.
TOP PHOTO: MEG OLIPHANT, GETTY IMAGES
