Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Mollie Marcoux Samaan stepping down as LPGA commissioner

Mollie Marcoux Samaan is stepping down as LPGA commissioner.

The LPGA introduced the information on Monday morning, simply over every week after the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Florida.

Marcoux Samaan’s final day will probably be Jan. 9, 2025.

“I thank Chairman John Veihmeyer and the remainder of the LPGA Board for trusting me to function the ninth Commissioner of the LPGA,” Marcoux Samaan mentioned. “On this position, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside a exceptional group of athletes, lecturers, companions, match operators, trade colleagues, media, followers, volunteers, and workers who share a deep dedication to rising the LPGA and utilizing the group’s distinctive platform to empower and advance ladies and women. I’m happy with the unprecedented progress the LPGA has loved since I started my tenure. The technique now we have constructed for progress and affect together with the infrastructure now we have added to capitalize on the large alternative forward will serve the LPGA effectively within the coming many years. With the LPGA positioned for continued progress, it’s time for me to have extra time to cheer on our three wonderful youngsters as they dwell their goals whereas I proceed to pursue my ardour for constructing leaders, uniting communities and creating worth by way of sports activities, significantly ladies’s sports activities.”

Liz Moore, the LPGA’s chief authorized and expertise officer, has been named interim commissioner whereas a worldwide search takes place for a everlasting alternative.

Marcoux Samaan, who had beforehand served as Princeton’s athletics director, was employed because the tour’s ninth commissioner in Might 2021, changing Mike Whan, who left for the USGA after 11 years main the LPGA.

Beneath Samaan, the LPGA’s purses elevated by over 90%, and gamers will compete for a report $131 million in prize cash subsequent 12 months. Since 2021, common earnings for top-100 gamers have doubled, rising to simply over $1 million. Additionally, Marcoux Samaan oversaw the implementation of missed-cut stipends, home journey stipends, psychological well being and bodily efficiency assets, and fully-subsidized healthcare insurance coverage, in line with the LPGA, which additionally touted report fan engagement and report fundraising, although the tour didn’t present any information.

Her contract was alleged to run by way of Summer time 2026.

The LPGA unveiled its 2025 schedule on Wednesday that may characteristic a report prize fund of greater than $131 million throughout 35 occasions.

“On behalf of the LPGA board, I wish to categorical our honest gratitude to Mollie for her distinctive dedication and keenness in advancing the Affiliation’s attain and affect,” Veihmeyer mentioned. “Since becoming a member of the LPGA in 2021, Mollie has been instrumental in solidifying our place as the worldwide chief in ladies’s skilled golf, realizing report progress in participant earnings and fan engagement. Mollie has been a steadfast advocate for fairness within the sport and has labored tirelessly to develop alternatives for girls and women by way of the sport. I’m assured that the LPGA is well-positioned for continued success as we construct on the expansion trajectory of the previous three and a half years of Mollie’s management. We deeply respect the lasting affect of Mollie’s many contributions.”

However Marcoux Samaan additionally confronted loads of scrutiny throughout her tenure.

Terry Duffy, CEO and chairman of CME Group, which sponsors the LPGA’s $11 million season finale, just lately instructed Golfweek of Samaan, “I don’t understand how you may not give A++ to the place the tour is at in the present day below her management.” However simply two years in the past, Duffy blasted Marcoux Samaan and LPGA management after no gamers confirmed up – regardless of 11 RSVPs – to an early-week dinner for sponsors forward of the CME Group Tour Championship.

“They higher get their act collectively,” Duffy mentioned in a Golfweek story in 2022, “as a result of they’re going to lose individuals like me over stuff like this.”

Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols, the tour’s preeminent beat reporter, wrote a critique of Marcoux Samaan final month, and laid out a number of management issues, together with the dearth of transparency with points such because the LPGA’s gender coverage and dealings with Golf Saudi, lack of Cognizant as a sponsor and different staple occasions, debacles at this 12 months’s Solheim Cup (fan transportation) and final 12 months’s Event of Champions (locker room) and, as Nichols characterised, Marcoux Samaan’s general lack of relationship-building expertise. Nichols’ most important argument was that the LPGA, below Marcoux Samaan’s lead, had didn’t capitalize on the rise of ladies’s sports activities, a growth spearheaded by WNBA participant – and avid golfer – Caitlin Clark.

“How a lot alternative is being left on the desk?” Nichols wrote. “It’s a query that may’t be escaped.”

Now, it’s as much as somebody apart from Marcoux Samaan to reply that query.

Golf Channel’s Tom Abbott, talking on “Golf At present,” mentioned he wasn’t stunned by the information, although he sensed “extra positivity” round Marcoux Samaan eventually month’s Rolex LPGA Awards banquet and thought possibly she’d overcome a few of the current “chatter.”

“I believe it’s a disgrace if these moments change into her legacy,” Abbott mentioned. “A number of the little issues that weren’t taken care of clearly turned a lot greater points, however they weren’t immediately associated to Mollie Marcoux Samaan. … However on the finish of the day, it does fall on her shoulders, and it’s individuals not taking good care of the little particulars, and that basically makes a giant distinction.

”… I hope that her legacy is the rise in purses and the amount of cash that gamers are taking part in for.”

Requested concerning the greatest problem for the subsequent commish, Abbott mentioned it won’t solely be navigating no matter occurs on the lads’s aspect with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund and its future involvement within the recreation, but additionally strengthening relationships with sponsors, discovering new sponsors and “retaining the longevity of occasions.”

“It’s not a straightforward place, and discovering the appropriate one who needs to enter that surroundings and tackle that problem, I don’t suppose it’s a straightforward activity,” Abbott mentioned. “This isn’t a job the place you get large inventory choices and bonuses and grants; that isn’t the case for the LPGA. … It is advisable to discover anyone who is de facto passionate concerning the recreation, who actually is aware of lots of people inside the recreation of golf and might make these connections, and might take care of all of the components.”

Added Golf Channel’s Paige Mackenzie, who performed on the LPGA: “There was a breakdown in communication in precisely what her imaginative and prescient was and the way she noticed progress occurring. … Shifting ahead, for me, what I’d love to listen to from the subsequent chief of the LPGA is explaining why the LPGA has worth and the way it can profit all of the companions concerned.”


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