Women’s majors in golf have a complicated history, but also a logical path forward… if the game’s administrators are brave enough.
Is five majors too many? Did you watch any of the Chevron Championship? Do you know how many female players have won the “Super Career Grand Slam”? Did you know that Aronimink, where Aaron Rai recently won the men’s PGA Championship, also hosted the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in 2020? And that it was won by Sei Young Kim with a final-round 63?
I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t have answers to those questions. The world of women’s major golf is complicated, with a complicated history. Since 1950 (the LPGA’s inaugural year), the number of majors per year has fluctuated from two to five. There have been eight different events classed as ‘majors’ since the LPGA started designating them as such. The current iteration, in this order, is as follows: the Chevron Championship, the US Women’s Open, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the Evian Championship and the AIG Women’s Open. The first three are held in the US, with Evian in France and the Women’s Open in the UK (as with the men’s Open Championship).
Let’s start with Chevron, seeing as it’s the first one played each year. This year’s edition caused a bit of a stir online and as is typically the case when something within women’s golf breaks through, it wasn’t really anything to do with the golf being played. (For the record, Nelly Korda won, as she would go on to do at the US Women’s Open several weeks later.) But the discourse around Chevron was more to do with the lack of major feel surrounding the event, at least to the outside golf world. The ‘average’ golf fan struggles to connect – particularly when you compare the build-up to the first men’s major of the year: the Masters, no less.
For me, the Chevron dilemma represents a deeper issue within women’s golf, which is only amplified by the majors. The media and coverage is nowhere near as omnipresent as it feels with men’s golf and actually being able to watch it, either in person or on television, can be hard to navigate or require additional charges. It’s hard to argue that there is no demand from fans when the product is hiding or inaccessible.
The Chevron Championship isn’t alone among the majors to have a sponsor name attached to it, although it is the most prominent. In the modern era it is an unfortunate necessity to boost the prize funds to a level befitting the best players in the world, and it is worth saying that every sponsor doing so, including Chevron, deserves immense plaudits for recognising the value in women’s golf. But again, to some people that represents a disconnect – should the most prestigious tournaments in the game have sponsors attached to the name itself? To some, at best it removes some prestige and at worst stops it from sounding like a major championship at all.
When Chevron took over the naming rights of the tournament and in doing so, almost doubled the prize fund – it was moved from its long-standing site of the Dinah Shore course in Mission Hills, California, to Texas. One of the few recognisable threads of history running through women’s golf was frayed or sold with the move, alienating a core fan base that had engaged with the Dinah Shore site for decades.
Finding ways to better engage with existing fans is a huge part of how women’s golf can grow into a better, more entertaining product. There are vast untapped markets that crave big events to get behind, such as South Korea and Australia. Taking one of the majors around the world, particularly to fans that have already bought into the product and have current major champions to get behind, would do a huge amount to enhance the entire dynamic of the event.
I think the women’s majors are hard to define because they lack exactly that; definition. The US Women’s Open and the AIG Women’s Open have elevated themselves in recent years by creating a similar feel to the men’s versions – punishing, iconic venues with rich histories. But it is difficult to discuss history when it is barely agreed on what constitutes the career Grand Slam. Is it winning all five majors as they are now? Or is it winning four majors, as would constitute ‘tradition’?
I don’t believe it is a bad thing that women’s golf has a different history to men’s golf. The two do not need to be the same. But in recognising what makes them different, it is worth making sure their identities can be both understood and fulfilled.
