Craig Kessler was only six months into his job as the LPGA Tour’s commissioner when a crisis seemingly of his own making arose. This past January, with unusual, sub-freezing temperatures plaguing the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, Kessler made the decision at midday on Sunday to cancel the final round and shorten the event to 54 holes, citing the lack of an “optimal competitive environment.”
There was no further detail immediately provided, and among the critics of the decision was none other than Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam, who said, “I don’t know why they’re not playing,” after she and other celebrities, along with LPGA competitors completing their third rounds, had played that morning. There was no initial explanation either for why the tournament wasn’t extended into Monday.
It wouldn’t be until Sunday night that the LPGA released a statement saying that “the combination of cold temperatures, wind, shaded areas and, in some cases, hardened ground made it increasingly difficult to ensure fair and consistent playing conditions.”
It was all a bad look for the organization, only made worse by Nelly Korda—the tour’s top star who hadn’t won in more than a year—being the champion as the 54-hole leader. There were suspicions expressed in some corners that the LPGA was playing favorites.
Kessler would ultimately write an apology letter to the LPGA player membership in the first week of February. “With the benefit of hindsight, there were clearly other ways we should have managed the situation,” he said.
It was a brutal and emotional few weeks for Kessler, and he expanded on that recently while appearing on a Front Office Sports show, “Tuned In,” that appears on the Spectrum Business cable channel.
Kessler was asked about his thoughts on the Good Good-Callaway controversy, and while addressing that, he volunteered to speak of his own time of crisis, including the fact he went to the membership with “tears in my eyes asking them for forgiveness.”
“Earlier this year, Tournament of Champions, our first tournament of the season in Florida, made the call to cancel the final round because of awful weather,” Kessler explained. “It was below-freezing conditions, and I got vilified for making that call. I mean, vilified. My kids came home from elementary school, and they’re like, ‘Dad, my friend Googled you, and it seems like you suck at your job.’ I was, like, ‘Well, let me explain to you, like, what happened.’ And the hardest part of that was not answering to my kids or the players.
“I was going to the team six months into the job with tears in my eyes, asking them for forgiveness because, if we’re being honest, I overruled what a couple members of the team said we should have done, and they were right, and I was wrong.”
However, to Kessler’s larger point about being allowed to make mistakes, he said, “Should I have lost my job for making a mistake? Like, that’s crazy.”
The portion of the “Tuned In” interview posted by FOS began with Kessler being asked his thoughts on the Good Good controversy, sparked when a promotional video for a new Callaway driver portrayed a man shoving a woman to the ground to keep her from touching the club. The fallout included executive leadership resignations, severed business ties and Good Good losing its title sponsorship of a new PGA Tour event.
Kessler called the situation “heartbreaking.”
”The fact that someone thought that was a good idea and it came to life just shows you that while society has made enormous progress, we have a very, very long way to go,” Kessler said. “I also think, and look, I’ve learned this myself as a leader of a few different organizations, but even here over the last, whatever, fourteen, fifteen months, good people make mistakes, and we have to leave room in society for someone to say, ‘I made a massive mistake. Please forgive me. Here’s what I learned, and it won’t happen again.’”
Kessler then went into the explanation about his troubles in January, before going back to his original train of thought.
“If we live in this world where every single time somebody makes a mistake, there’s no chance to learn from it and ask for forgiveness, I don’t know how we’re ever gonna raise a society of risk-takers,” he said. “So, brutal that it happened. Awful. My heart goes out to anybody who was affected, and I think a lot of lessons were learned.”