Lydia Ko has a message for the golf community: the prize money doesn't bring people to golf events. And that's what she emphasized at the Fortinet Founder's Cup.

Ko stated, "I would love the winning purse to be like CME every week," she continued, "but sometimes I think we’ve got to match, like, what do we bring to the community?"

This point of view emerged from a three-hour coffee meeting with LPGA Commissioner Craig Kessler, during which Ko discussed some of the 'pain points' associated with the tour's financial trajectory and its challenges with community engagement.

We've seen these instances before. Remember the 2024 Solheim Cup? Just because there weren't enough buses to shuttle fans in attendance, players teed off with half-empty grandstands at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. What should have been an invigorating crowd felt lackluster instead.

And it wasn't just a one-off case. The 2025 Chevron Championship came under fire for its accessibility and the difficulty in navigating the course for fans. That's why Ko added:

"It's a lot more complex than just the purse. Like if nobody's coming out to watch us play at a certain event, it'd be weird if we had a $1.5 million [winner's prize] … so what can we bring to the community, what can we bring to our partners? All of these things have to align. It doesn't make sense if one outweighs the other drastically."

Ko also remarked that players tend to think very narrowly about what they are playing for in the moment. She warned, "There might be nothing to play for if our organization is not fundamentally strong."

A Legacy Beyond the Record Books

While Ko's commitment to the health of the tour is admirable, her own retirement is just around the corner, which she estimates will be no later than the 2027 season.

Like her heroes Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa, she has always shown a desire to leave the sport at the top, and to do so, she has to maintain the highest levels of competition until her very last tournament.

This dedication to excellence propelled her to serve on the LPGA board. She is using her international visibility to champion a sustainable tour that will flourish long after she retires.

Ko is positioned to overtake Sorenstam on the all-time career money list before she says her final goodbye. However, she is still motivated by the ambition to improve the industry.

Read more at Daily Club Golf!

Written by

Abhishek Sharma

Edited by

Siddharth Shirwadkar