LPGA's first major of 2026 comes with big questions and massive stakes

After three underwhelming years at Carlton Woods, the LPGA and Chevron made the decision to move the tournament from the Houston suburbs to Memorial Park, a muni in the heart of the city that also hosts the PGA Tour’s Houston Open. The move to Memorial Park was universally praised. Moving the event into the city should make it easier to boost attendance, giving it a bigger feel, and Memorial Park is a far more interesting course, with tricky greens that demand precision and a memorable finishing stretch.

But the move to Memorial Park also further underscores the ongoing identity crisis. What makes the U.S. Women’s Open, AIG Women’s Open and KPMG Women’s PGA exciting is the rotation of venues those majors run through. It’s hard for a non-iconic course to take root as a standalone major venue. On the men’s side, the only constant is Augusta National. If a major is going to come back to the same place every year, the course has to be a central figure in the story. It has to be something fans are familiar with and want to return to every year.

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Jeeno Thitikul watches a tee shot at the Aramco Championship

In order for the Memorial Park move to pay dividends, it’s going to need the help of one of Kessler’s first big swings as commissioner: the enhanced broadcast.

Thanks to a deal with FM, Golf Channel and Trackman, LPGA broadcasts will have a 50 percent increase in cameras, three times as many microphones, quadruple the number of shot-tracing capabilities, more slow-motion cameras and drones. The LPGA rolled out the enhanced broadcast features at Sharon Heights earlier this year, and its debut was a clear win. There were kinks to work out and improvements to make, but the changes were noticeable and welcome.

This week is the real test for those enhancements and broadcast partner NBC’s willingness to give this event the major shine. It’s incumbent on the broadcast to use all of the bells and whistles for greater storytelling, to highlight the intricacies of the Tom Doak course and create major tension. It’s not enough to say it’s a major; you have to make the viewer feel it.

All of that leads to the one thing that’s out of the LPGA’s control this week, but that is most vital in giving this major the juice it needs: the stars have to show up.

Back in November, Kessler said there’s “no silver bullet” to building stars. While that may be true, if you want to create inroads and build the audience, the needles have to be front and center on your biggest weeks.

That starts, and maybe ends, with Nelly Korda.

Just as men’s golf has become dominated by Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, the LPGA needs Korda to do the same. After winning seven times in 2024, Korda went winless in what she called a “weird” 2025. She changed her schedule and preparation this year and has gone 1-2-2-T2 in four starts. The World No. 2 arrived in Houston after taking a week off and seems to be feeling free and easy as the first major arrives. Plenty of signs point to this being a Korda week, and that would be a welcome sight as the LPGA goes under the spotlight and the major season begins.

Outside of Korda in 2024, the Chevron Championship has seen several first-time major winners in recent years. Building a base of major champions is good for the depth of the league, but if you’re looking to create a bigger fan base, the best path is to have your stars — Korda, Charley Hull, Jeeno Thitikul, Lydia Ko — in the mix entering the weekend, have them bring the eyeballs and then let them and the enhanced broadcast be the entry point to the rest of the tour.

That’s the formula for success for the LPGA and Chevron Championship. We’re about to see if they find it this week.

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