TARZANA, Calif. — Liz Moore is at one of the LPGA’s revered events just north of Los Angeles for a couple of days, and it’s certainly a happy place for golfers. The JM Eagle LA Championship is one of the tour’s beloved events—named event of the year in 2024—in the second-largest TV market in the country.
Several players visited Fire Station 83 in Encino for a tour and conversations with fire fighters who battled the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. There are hospitality tents for those who were affected by the fires, a women’s leadership panel, junior clinics, parties, prizes and the hotel is covered by tournament organizers.
And then there’s the money, a purse of $3.75 million with a $300,000 prize for the winner. It’s the second-largest purse on tour beside the majors and CME Group Tour Championship, thanks to sponsors Walter and Shirley Wang. Walter is the CEO of JM Eagle and Shirley the CEO of Plastpro. They’ve also used the tournament to help the community and pledged $6.5 million to fire relief efforts in Southern California.
The LPGA is paying for a record $131 million this season, up from $123 million the year before. Higher purses are a continued need for the tour, and in this case, more money means less problems.
Moore, the interim commissioner and corporate secretary, is proud of many things in her new role that started in January. Mollie Marcoux Samaan announced her resignation late in 2024 and she was done in early January.
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Tournaments like this are feathers in the tour’s collective cap. A new pace of play policy was instituted to the delight of players, the LEAP program (to get top amateurs into the tour faster) and there are two new events in the Black Desert Championship and the Riviera Maya Open in Mexico.
But the LPGA has also had two high-profile gaffes in 2025, both of which were tough to understand, including the cancellation of the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship in Palos Verdes, Calif., and a clerical error that led to the incorrect priority list status for Sophia Popov. It placed her in three events that three other players should’ve been in and put her name in the middle of a controversy that was not her fault.
Moore sat down with Golf Digest to talk about the positives, challenges, hiccups, and victories in a time where a new commissioner will be charged with capitalizing on the popularity of women’s sports.
“Has there ever been a better time to be in women’s sports? I just think it’s incredible the tailwinds that we have in women’s sports across the board, including golf. know, everyone has kind of moved on from talking about it as a moment, and it is officially a movement, and we’re going to leverage it,” Moore said. “As I mentioned, I think the LPGA is at an inflection point right now. I think we have tremendous opportunity in front of us. We’ve had momentum over the last few years, and we’re seeing that continue through partner support, fan growth.”
Douglas P. DeFelice
Last year there were several big storylines for the tour, including World No. 1 Nelly Korda’s historic five-consecutive tournament win streak, Lydia Ko’s Olympic gold medal and LPGA Hall of Fame induction and Caitlin Clark’s participation in the pro-am at the Annika Sorenstam event in Florida.
Moore has been with the LPGA since 2014, so she’s seen plenty. She was the chief legal and technology officer before getting the view from the top. Her goal was to advance the LPGA in this, its 75th anniversary year, and she was thrilled for the opportunity, no matter how short or long her stint is as commissioner.
“I think just in terms of the role of the board really, you know, asked me when I stepped in to push the business forward, so we’ve been full steam ahead ever since,” Moore said. “Establishing our strategic priorities and making business decisions that we think are in the best interests of the organization. It’s a unique role, because there’s a balance there, because it’s really about also moving the business forward, but setting it up for success for when we have the new leader. And so they can implement their vision when we get here.”
Moore took over on an interim basis and has presided over the LPGA for four months. Golfweek reported recently that the commissioner’s job is down to two candidates—Alex Baldwin and Craig Kessler—so a decision should be made soon.
Moore believes the stories and personalities of the tour’s players are what they need to continue to grow the fan base.
“With it being the 75th anniversary for the LPGA, it’s pretty incredible. It’s the longest running women’s sports property on the planet,” Moore said. “We’re proud of that. We have the opportunity to tell those stories at a time when people are looking at women’s sports and wanting to hear those stories, both about the organization and about our players. I just think the fan engagement numbers are really kind of telling the stories to your question.
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“We’ve more than doubled our total media consumption in the last three years. We can’t produce enough content. The more content we produce, the more they’re consuming. We had, I think perhaps the largest Solheim viewership, recently in at RTJ (Robert Trent Jones Golf Club) and then the Chevron last year, you know, numbers off the charts … Obviously, we had a really exciting year last year with Nelly but looking to repeat that. I couldn’t be more excited about where we go from here to continue the momentum in the growth.”
Korda’s victory at the Chevron Championship peaked at 1.9 million viewers in the final round on NBC on that Sunday almost a year ago. Korda’s streak was mesmerizing but gaining attention and eyes during the season is a source of needed improvement for the tour.
Negative attention has come in two forms with the January cancellation of the tournament in Palos Verdes—two months before it was scheduled to be played. The LPGA went from 33 official events to 32.
“A lot has been written on that already, so I’ll leave most of it to what has been written, but I will say we obviously were disappointed in losing the event, and we just had such incredible support from the club, the city, our members love that event, and so we are committed to finding a way back to [Palos Verdes], for sure,” Moore said. “You know, it’s unfortunate that things transpired the way they did with the underwriter of that event that we’re working on that separately, and I think given the demand, I’m confident we’re gonna find our way back to Palos Verdes sometime.”
Asked if that would be next year, Moore said: “there’s not a specific day on the board. Nothing to report.”
Then there was the aforementioned clerical error that had Popov playing in three events she shouldn’t have, figured incorrectly based on her medical and maternity leave.
“One of the things I said when I stepped into this role, particularly to that I committed to the board and to our members, was that we would move fast with intention,” Moore said. “We’d be flexible, but that we would also communicate on all matters with our stakeholders. And we did that in this case. We did make a mistake. We caught it quickly and immediately went to work on implementing changes to avoid that happening in the future. Obviously, we also communicated with all those players who were incredibly gracious in their understanding. And we thank them for that. I think we have positioned ourselves so that that doesn’t happen again. But I think we responded to it the best way that we could.”
Sophia Popov during the second round of the Founders Cup in Florida earlier this year.
Julio Aguilar
Asked what happens to potential lost CME points and money for the three players—Saki Baba, Hira Naveed and Peiyun Chien, according to a report by Golfweek—who lost the opportunity to play, Moore said: “We looked at all the data, and I think that based on the data and the information, we don’t believe that those players will be compromised going forward as a result of losing the points. They’re in all of the priority list events that they would otherwise have been in. That being said, we also keep the lines of communication open and monitor things as we move through the season. We’re committed to doing right by the players going forward.”
The LPGA will continue to look to increase purses and sponsors and stars and such, and to omit the kinds of mistakes that have the tour sometimes taking two steps forward and a giant step back.
Moore hopes to remain working for the LPGA once the new commissioner begins, whether that’s her previous role or something different. For now, she’ll continue leading the organization, trying to capture some of that fuel that’s guiding the rocket ship of women’s sports.
Since Mike Whan left in 2021 after a successful 11-year stint as commissioner, the tour will have had three commissioners since 2021. Consistency in the commissioner’s seat is needed.
“We’ve got this momentum,” Moore said. “It’s now our job to carry it forward. And I think we’re well positioned to do that. As I said, we’re full steam ahead. We haven’t slowed down during this interim period, and I am confident the search committee is going to find the right person that will step in and be the next commissioner to take it forward and deliver against their vision.”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
