“ I mean, I think the casual fan thinks we play the red tees,” Virginia-raised threetime LPGA Tour winner Lauren Coughlin said during a chat at Keswick Hall in July.

Ridiculous, of course. But it’ s easy to be misinformed about the tour featuring the best female players in the world when watching it on television remains a difficult proposition outside of major championships.

Even the final major of the season, the AIG Women’ s Open, wasn’ t exactly easy to follow. While the men’ s Open Championship featured wall-to-wall coverage on over-the-air national networks, the women received all of four hours of national coverage over four days— two hours each on Saturday and Sunday on NBC.

For the rest, fans needed to scramble to Golf Channel or USA, which aren’ t readily available to everyone without cable or a streaming subscription.

Coughlin, now in her eighth year on the LPGA Tour, joined the LPGA board of directors as a player director at the end of 2025, and the experience has been an eye-opening one, she said.

“ To be honest, it’ s been a little more of a time commitment than I was anticipating, but I’ ve loved it,” she said.“ I really enjoy getting a behind-the-curtain view of what’ s going on. I really didn’ t understand all the things that go on.

“ Craig [ Kessler ], our commissioner, he’ s incredible. I had my first in-person board meeting on Monday of Vegas week. … And I was just looking over at him and he has all these talking points for a five-hour meeting, and he hardly has any notes. It’ s just all in his head.”

Kessler came aboard in May 2025, replacing Mollie Marcoux Samaan, whose 3.5-year tenure came to a bit of a tumultuous end.( Who can forget the Solheim Cup shuttle bus fiasco in 2024?) Kessler and Coughlin are on the same page on one thing— the television product must improve if the LPGA is going to ever break out of niche status and into the sports mainstream.

Women’ s sports have taken a giant leap in recent years. The WNBA is no longer an NBA-propped novelty, but a mainstream product that gets exposure on ABC, CBS, ESPN, and more. Caitlin Clark has become part of the daily national sports talk radio discourse. The Women’ s World Cup draws plenty of attention every four years, and the NWSL has broadcast deals with CBS Sports, ESPN, and Prime Video.

It’ s not just the quantity of hours the LPGA receives on major networks; it’ s the quality of the broadcast that continues to be a concern, even if Kessler— starting with the majors— has taken steps to beef up broadcasts with more cameras, more microphones on players, more drone coverage of venues, more of everything that makes a golf broadcast shine.

“ The men have cameras, multiple cameras, on every hole,” Coughlin said.“ So they can fill so much time on the broadcast with shots. Whereas on our tour, it’ s three groups that they can show, and then the last four holes. So it leaves this void where they’ re having to fill time either with speaking

or just showing random things, and it makes us look a certain way that’ s not representative of what our tour actually is.”

If these issues sound familiar, there’ s a reason. When I ran into Coughlin several years ago at Birdwood when she was in town to play a round with“ No Laying Up” co-founder Chris Solomon, we basically had the same discussion. Change is seemingly slow to come by.

Still, there are signs that the LPGA’ s investment is paying off. Viewership for the 2026 U. S. Women’ s Open was up 78 percent compared to 2025, surely helped by NBC’ s dream scenario of having two of its most marketable stars— Nelly Korda and Charley Hull— battling it out down the stretch at a hallowed venue, Riviera Country Club.

Now comes the week-to-week. The PGA Tour’ s Rocket Classic in Detroit, hardly a headline event, enjoyed six hours of CBS coverage spread over the weekend in early August. The LPGA’ s Standard Portland Classic received zero hours on network TV, instead getting four three-hour Golf Channel slots.

“ The tour is very strong,” Coughlin said.“ And again, I don’ t think the product, which is the players, is the issue, per se. How it gets broadcasted and how it gets shown is what has to change, and hopefully it will open up a lot of people’ s eyes on how good we actually are.”

Coughlin will continue to work with Kessler and the LPGA Board to fight for these improvements. Stay tuned.

USGA / JASON E. MICZEK