Craig Kessler starts in a few days and knows what he must do to help the tour grow.Women’s golf has been riding a wave of increased popularity over the past five years.At the professional level, golf has a young generation of stars like Nelly Korda, Charley Hull, Minjee Lee and Rose Zhang, who are keeping fans engaged and who are expected to play in this week’s Amundi Evian Championship.Korda, in winning five tournaments in a row last year, transcended golf to become part of the broader sports conversation for her feat.Among amateurs, girls and young women are the fastest growing contingent of golfers. A third of junior golfers are girls — the highest percentage ever — and the number of female golfers has grown by 41 percent since 2019, according to the National Golf Foundation.But unlike the organizations behind women’s soccer or basketball, the largest professional organization behind women’s golf, the L.P.G.A., which runs the L.P.G.A. Tour, has struggled to capitalize on interest in the sport and the star power of its players.Craig Kessler, the L.P.G.A.’s incoming commissioner, said that his goal was to nurture emotional investment among fans.Sam Hodde/Getty ImagesThe league’s newly appointed commissioner, Craig Kessler, who starts on Tuesday, knows that leveraging this interest in the women’s game to create momentum is his remit. He does not shy away from the challenges.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
