Suzy Whaley applauds Lexi Thompson for stepping outside her comfort zone to take on the men.
It’s been 20 years since Suzy Whaley teed it up on the PGA Tour in the 2003 Greater Hartford Open. Now a groundbreaking past president of the PGA of America, Whaley became the first woman to compete in a PGA Tour event since the great Babe Zaharias in 1945.
Whaley, of course, earned her spot by winning the 2002 Connecticut PGA Championship.
The field and the scene next week in Vegas will be much different for Thompson than it was for Whaley, who laughed out loud when David Duval introduced himself on the putting green. (“I know who you are!”) Whaley actually credits much of her success that week to a chip shot Peter Jacobsen taught her during a practice round.
Most of the heavy hitters on the PGA Tour have shut it down this fall, and Thompson has only a week of lead-up to prepare and navigate the naysayers.
Whaley dealt with the buildup – good and bad – for months. She ultimately shot 75-78 to miss the cut by 13 strokes. Only one player – Zaharias – has ever made the cut in a PGA Tour event.
Golfweek recently caught up with Whaley to reminisce on her time playing against the men and talk about the challenges Lexi might face.
Whaley firmly believes that women taking opportunities outside their comfort zones is what must be done to create progress.
“Yesterday the world was talking about women’s golf more in one day than I heard for nine months to the Solheim Cup,” said Whaley.
“I can’t wait for the day when women get that kind of attention and don’t have to play against the men to get it.”
What follows is by no means an exhaustive list of women who have teed it up against the men (on any level, from state amateurs to mini tours) but instead, these are some of the more iconic moments of women teeing it up in a different arena and making history.
The 2023 Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be in November at the PGA’s new home in Frisco, Texas.
The PGA of America’s 2023 Hall of Fame class will feature three PGA professionals, an LPGA legend, a past PGA president and a famous broadcaster.
The PGA announced its next Hall inductee list Monday, with the official ceremony set for Nov. 8, at the Omni PGA Frisco Resort in Texas.
PGA Members Robert Dolan (Middle Atlantic PGA Section), Don Wegrzyn (Illinois PGA Section) and Herb Wimberly (Sun Country PGA Section) will be inducted alongside past president Suzy Whaley, LPGA legend Kathy Whitworth and CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz at the 107th PGA Annual Meeting. The PGA’s Hall started in 1940.
“It is an incredible honor for the PGA of America to recognize and celebrate our six inductees who have made a real impact on the game of golf and the countless individuals they’ve inspired along the way,” said PGA of America President John Lindert.
Whitworth, who died on Christmas Eve in 2022, collected 88 victories during her 23-year career, the most tournament victories by a professional golfer. She was the LPGA’s leading money winner eight times, Player of the Year seven times and won the Vare Trophy (lowest scoring average) seven times.
Suzy Whaley is a Master Professional who became the first woman elected to serve as PGA President in 2018. She played on the LPGA in 1990 and 1993 and qualified for the 2003 Greater Hartford Open (now known as the Travelers Championship), becoming the first woman since Babe Zaharias in 1945 to play in a PGA Tour event.
Nantz is a member of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. He’s also in the Pro Football and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fames. A three-time Emmy Award winner and five-time National Sportscaster of the Year, he’s been with CBS since 1985 and joined the network’s golf coverage in 1986.
Suzy Whaley sat down with Golfweek to discuss her newest venture, Golf Nation, the distance debate and more.
Have you ever been watching a YouTube video or a PGA Tour broadcast when a certain item of clothing or piece of equipment catches your eye? It’s happened to most of us, but it usually ends there. With no way to know what brand it is, it’s tough to go online and order yourself one.
Golf Nation, led by several executives including Mindy Grossman, whose resume includes positions with Nike, Ralph Lauren and WW International, is the first and only producer of original golf content with the ability for its audience to purchase items they see with the on-screen “buy bar.”
“Ambush with David Feherty,” is a hidden camera hijinks show hosted by the ex-PGA Tour broadcaster turned LIV Golf TV personality, while “Don’t I know you?” is a golf newlywed game. The first episode is available and features Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson and his wife, Kim.
In March 2022, Suzy Whaley was named President of Golf Nation. If you’re unfamiliar with Whaley, she was the first female President of the PGA of America, she’s a Master PGA Professional, she’s played in a PGA Tour event and has worked with ESPN in its Tour TV coverage.
Golfweek sat down with Whaley to discuss Golf Nation, the distance debate in golf and more.
Whaley, a PGA Honorary President from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, captained the United States to victory in the 30th PGA Cup at Foxhills Resort and Club in Surrey, England, against Great Britain and Ireland. It is the Americans’ first overseas victory since 2009 and their second Llandudno International Trophy win. In the overall series, which dates to 1973, it’s the 19th win for the U.S.
Yet for Whaley, she’s the first woman to not only captain the men’s PGA Cup team but win it, too. She was also captain of the victorious United States Women’s PGA Cup team in its inaugural event in 2019.
“I have been able to do a lot of amazing things in my career, and this ranks right at the very top,” said Whaley.
Captain and PGA of America Honorary President, Suzy Whaley during single matches for the 30th PGA Cup at Foxhills Golf Club on September 18, 2022 in Ottershaw, England. (Photo by Matthew Harris/PGA of America)
The PGA Cup originated in 1973 at Pinehurst Country Club in North Carolina as an outgrowth of the PGA Professional Championship. Structured after the format of the Ryder Cup, with match-play competition between the U.S. and Europe, the PGA Cup features the top PGA Club Professionals from both sides of the Atlantic.
The U.S. led 9.5-6.5 entering singles on Sunday, and American Michael Block started the day with an incredible comeback. Block, the PGA Head Professional at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club, in Mission Viejo, California, birdied five of his six final holes, including two lengthy birdie putts on Nos. 15 and 17, to win the match 1 up.
“It really set the tone for everybody else,” said Whaley, who followed Block across the back nine. “He fought so hard, and he earned us that first point. That first point is so crucial for the rest of the team. I have never seen anyone fight so hard for a point.”
PGA Life Member and Austin native Omar Uresti, a two-time PGA Professional Champion, earned the clinching point for the United States, 4 & 3 over Great Britain & Ireland’s Simon Lilly, to help secure a 15.5-10.5 road win.
“It started to get a little dicey,” admitted Whaley. “But in the end, we got it done.”
The United States holds a 19-7-4 advantage in a series. The U.S. won in 2019 at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin, on a miraculous final day rally.
“My mom is really good at bringing me back to the present, whether that’s in a nice way or not so nice way.”
Kelly Whaley was back home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, chasing after two 9-month-old black Labs named Gracie and Lulu, when she picked up the phone. She’ll soon be off to Fort Myers, Florida, with her mother, Suzy, for U.S. Women’s Open qualifying May 4 at The Forest Country Club.
Suzy, the first female President of the PGA of America, qualified for her first U.S. Women’s Open in 1986 at age 19 and will caddie for her youngest daughter this time around.
Kelly, now 24, would love to make her first USWO appearance this year at Pine Needles, site of her U.S. Kids Golf World Championship title. It would be a dream, she said.
“My mom is really good at bringing me back to the present, whether that’s in a nice way or not so nice way,” said Kelly. “She knows when to give you a kick in the butt or say it’s all good. That’s what I really love about her caddying.”
Kelly Whaley with the family’s newest set of sisters, Gracie and Lulu. (Photo: Kelly Whaley)
It has been a year of firsts for Kelly, who competed overseas for the first time in March at the Aramco Saudi Ladies International. While there she set a Ladies European Tour record of eight consecutive birdies in a final-round, course record-tying 63 at Royal Greens that put her in the top 10, giving her a spot in the next week’s field in South Africa.
“When I was leaving for Saudi,” said Kelly, “I did not expect to jet off to South Africa right after. That was a blast.”
Kelly Whaley during the final round of the 2022 Aramco Saudi Ladies International. (Photo: Tristan Jones/LET)
There are five more events on Golf Saudi’s Aramco Team Series schedule this year and on Sunday, Kelly heads to Bangkok for the next installment.
Competing in events backed by Golf Saudi is a controversial topic, of course, particularly when it comes to human rights issues and the arrival of a rival league in the men’s game. Kelly said she approached the event as an opportunity and “wasn’t really taking account into what was going on outside.”
She also wanted to check out the Ladies European Tour, and what she found in Cape Town, South Africa, was particularly appealing with new friends, stunning ocean views and beautiful vineyards.
“I’m so thankful I did go because it’s opened many doors for me,” said Kelly, whose sixth-place finish in the Joburg Ladies Open earned her a spot in the Investec South African Women’s Open, where she tied for 26th.
Kelly, who like her mother played for North Carolina, has missed the cut in her last two Epson Tour events, but she tries to channel the feeling she had in the final round in Saudi Arabia every time she tees it up.
That birdie run started on the fourth hole and ran through the 11th, a stretch that included two par 5s. Her longest birdie putt was from 25 feet on No. 7 and her shortest was an inch on the 10th, where she stuffed a wedge from 105 yards.
“It’s almost like you have this confidence that just overcomes you,” she said, “and you can’t miss.”
Kelly Whaley at the 2022 Aramco Saudi Ladies International at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club, King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia. (Photo: Tristan Jones/LET)
Prior to Kelly’s eight-birdie run, the LET record of seven in a row was shared by Linda Wessberg, Marine Monnet-Melocco, Nicole Garcia, Kristie Smith and Stacy Lewis.
“That round has really kept me going this year,” said Kelly, who had her high school coach on the bag in Saudi Arabia. She would like to secure more invites to LET events this season but will mostly compete on the Epson Tour.
Kelly and her mom have the same competitive spirit. They strategize in similar ways too, and Kelly’s green-reading skills have improved since she started caddying at Seminole Golf Club during the offseason. Kelly, who is naturally more introverted, likes the enthusiasm mom brings.
“My mom is super energetic,” said Kelly. “There’s never a moment of silence, which is what I need.”
The first three parts of the Connected Golfer focused on how golfers can get more information about shots they hit during practice sessions and on the course when they play. Now, the fourth installment concentrates on how a growing number of services and technologies let players and teaching professionals communicate, share videos and work together even if they are thousands of miles apart.
In the early 2000s, Ted Sheftic, one of the most highly-regarded teaching professionals in Pennsylvania, pushed an over-sized cart next to his lesson area at Hanover Country Club in Abbottstown, Pennsylvania. It held a VHS cassette player hooked up to a small television. The cart also held a tripod and a video camera that Sheftic used to videotape his students’ swings. On sunny days, he balanced an umbrella above the screen to reduce glare.
After their lessons, Sheftic gave his students a tape of their lesson to take home and review, which was among the reasons why his lesson calendar was always packed.
Fast forward about 15 years, and shift 300 miles Northeast, and you would often see Suzy Whaley on the back of the range at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut. On most summer afternoons, when she was not on the road fulfilling her duties as the president of the PGA of America, she was busy teaching. It’s where you would have found me too in 2017, taking a lesson from Whaley once or twice a month, as we tried to straighten my slice and build some consistency with my irons.
After about 30 minutes of hitting balls and doing drills, she would invariably hold up an iPad and stand about 10 feet behind me as I made a swing, then show me the video clip.
“Your takeaway is getting so much better, David,” she said one afternoon while her fingers danced on the touchscreen. She drew lines on the video to show my spine angle, the shaft angle at address and the club’s face angle as I made my backswing. “Look at that. A month ago, you were nowhere close to this halfway to the top.”
Writer David Dusek captures his swing on camera.
A few days after each lesson, and with a few taps on my iPhone, I would watch those swings again on the range and review the drills Whaley wanted me to work on before our next session. We were about 30 miles apart, but class was still in session.
Once a novelty, now the norm
Sheftic was ahead of his time and using the technology of the day. Remember, the first iPhone was not released until the summer of 2007. Today, for golfers who are willing to invest in lessons and the instructors who teach them, capturing video of a golf swing, analyzing it and sharing it is simple.
On a recent episode of Barstool’s Fore Play podcast, Butch Harmon explained that several big-name PGA Tour players often send him videos of their swing and ask him for options.
“(Webb Simpson) sent me a film the other day and said, ‘I can feel the club is back inside again,'” Harmon said. “I said, ‘No, you’re too narrow. That’s why you’re in your own way.'”
Harmon does not go to Tour events every week anymore, but thanks to technology, he doesn’t have to travel to stay in touch with players who want his advice.
“With these things, it’s easy,” he said, holding up his mobile phone. “(Pros) can film their swing at any place in the world, and they can send me a film of it and I can pick up the phone or just text them right back.”
Beyond the simple camera that comes built into phones and tablets, several services and apps now allow players and coaches to take virtual lessons to the next level.
There’s an app for that
For instance, V1 Sports has been among the leaders in the software that allows golf instructors to capture video, review it and mark it up with lines, circles and other drawings while adding voiceovers to the clips. Instructors can then send the clips to their students using a V1 smartphone app. Students can review the lessons and drills, save them and refer to them any time. They can also capture video clips and send them to their coach using V1.
V1 virtual lesson technology
V1 has also recently developed an online golf academy that allows players to select an instructor then send up to eight swings for personalized evaluation and coaching advice.
The Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor links to a golfer’s smartphone using Bluetooth, then records a video of a golfer’s swing and adds a shot-tracer graphic. It also adds information like carry distance, apex, and ball speed to the top of the clip, which golfers can then share (along with the overlaid launch monitor data) with their instructors. Using Rapsodo’s Coach Connect feature to critique the swing, instructors can make comments, recommend drills based on what they see and more. Golfers can even buy virtual lessons with pros they have never met in person using Rapsodo.
Savvy instructors made great use of technologies like this during the summer and fall of 2020 when people flocked to golf courses and the sport boomed, but many people wanted to avoid close contact during the COVID-19 pandemic. Powered by smartphone cameras and other devices, virtual golf lessons proved to be a viable, effective way for golfers to improve.
One of the less obvious benefits of virtual golf lessons is when it is time to work with a custom fitter and get new equipment, golfers can show the fitter their most-recent lessons, and the drills they are working on should give fitters a better understanding of the player.
With today’s technology, a Connected Golfer isn’t limited to instructors who are close by, geographically. For instructors, technology is providing better ways to stay in touch with students and monitor their progress. And for fitters, it has never been easier to understand exactly what a player and coach are working on and build equipment that will help them produce better results.
The first three parts of the Connected Golfer focused on how golfers can get more information about shots they hit during practice sessions and on the course when they play. Now, the fourth installment concentrates on how a growing number of services and technologies let players and teaching professionals communicate, share videos and work together even if they are thousands of miles apart.
In the early 2000s, Ted Sheftic, one of the most highly-regarded teaching professionals in Pennsylvania, pushed an over-sized cart next to his lesson area at Hanover Country Club in Abbottstown, Pennsylvania. It held a VHS cassette player hooked up to a small television. The cart also held a tripod and a video camera that Sheftic used to videotape his students’ swings. On sunny days, he balanced an umbrella above the screen to reduce glare.
After their lessons, Sheftic gave his students a tape of their lesson to take home and review, which was among the reasons why his lesson calendar was always packed.
Fast forward about 15 years, and shift 300 miles Northeast, and you would often see Suzy Whaley on the back of the range at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, Connecticut. On most summer afternoons, when she was not on the road fulfilling her duties as the president of the PGA of America, she was busy teaching. It’s where you would have found me too in 2017, taking a lesson from Whaley once or twice a month, as we tried to straighten my slice and build some consistency with my irons.
After about 30 minutes of hitting balls and doing drills, she would invariably hold up an iPad and stand about 10 feet behind me as I made a swing, then show me the video clip.
“Your takeaway is getting so much better, David,” she said one afternoon while her fingers danced on the touchscreen. She drew lines on the video to show my spine angle, the shaft angle at address and the club’s face angle as I made my backswing. “Look at that. A month ago, you were nowhere close to this halfway to the top.”
Writer David Dusek captures his swing on camera.
A few days after each lesson, and with a few taps on my iPhone, I would watch those swings again on the range and review the drills Whaley wanted me to work on before our next session. We were about 30 miles apart, but class was still in session.
Once a novelty, now the norm
Sheftic was ahead of his time and using the technology of the day. Remember, the first iPhone was not released until the summer of 2007. Today, for golfers who are willing to invest in lessons and the instructors who teach them, capturing video of a golf swing, analyzing it and sharing it is simple.
On a recent episode of Barstool’s Fore Play podcast, Butch Harmon explained that several big-name PGA Tour players often send him videos of their swing and ask him for options.
“(Webb Simpson) sent me a film the other day and said, ‘I can feel the club is back inside again,'” Harmon said. “I said, ‘No, you’re too narrow. That’s why you’re in your own way.'”
Harmon does not go to Tour events every week anymore, but thanks to technology, he doesn’t have to travel to stay in touch with players who want his advice.
“With these things, it’s easy,” he said, holding up his mobile phone. “(Pros) can film their swing at any place in the world, and they can send me a film of it and I can pick up the phone or just text them right back.”
Beyond the simple camera that comes built into phones and tablets, several services and apps now allow players and coaches to take virtual lessons to the next level.
There’s an app for that
For instance, V1 Sports has been among the leaders in the software that allows golf instructors to capture video, review it and mark it up with lines, circles and other drawings while adding voiceovers to the clips. Instructors can then send the clips to their students using a V1 smartphone app. Students can review the lessons and drills, save them and refer to them any time. They can also capture video clips and send them to their coach using V1.
V1 virtual lesson technology
V1 has also recently developed an online golf academy that allows players to select an instructor then send up to eight swings for personalized evaluation and coaching advice.
The Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor links to a golfer’s smartphone using Bluetooth, then records a video of a golfer’s swing and adds a shot-tracer graphic. It also adds information like carry distance, apex, and ball speed to the top of the clip, which golfers can then share (along with the overlaid launch monitor data) with their instructors. Using Rapsodo’s Coach Connect feature to critique the swing, instructors can make comments, recommend drills based on what they see and more. Golfers can even buy virtual lessons with pros they have never met in person using Rapsodo.
Savvy instructors made great use of technologies like this during the summer and fall of 2020 when people flocked to golf courses and the sport boomed, but many people wanted to avoid close contact during the COVID-19 pandemic. Powered by smartphone cameras and other devices, virtual golf lessons proved to be a viable, effective way for golfers to improve.
One of the less obvious benefits of virtual golf lessons is when it is time to work with a custom fitter and get new equipment, golfers can show the fitter their most-recent lessons, and the drills they are working on should give fitters a better understanding of the player.
With today’s technology, a Connected Golfer isn’t limited to instructors who are close by, geographically. For instructors, technology is providing better ways to stay in touch with students and monitor their progress. And for fitters, it has never been easier to understand exactly what a player and coach are working on and build equipment that will help them produce better results.
Whaley told Golfweek that she was very interested in the position but had taken her name out of the race.
As Mike Whan readies to make the move from Florida to New Jersey – he bought a place at Hamilton Farm Golf Club – the search for his replacement at the LPGA has begun to narrow.
Golfweek has learned that the number of candidates for LPGA commissioner has been whittled down from hundreds to eight, with a second round of interviews now in the works.
Suzy Whaley, the first female president of the PGA of America, however, is not among those final candidates. Whaley told Golfweek that she was very interested in the position but had taken her name out of the race. She did not say why.
Whan, who on Feb. 17 was named the USGA’s next CEO, said the LPGA board hoped to make a decision by the end of May. Whan will officially take over on July 1.
“With my own personal experience with the USGA, a process that I thought might take six months took six weeks,” said Whan at the ANA Inspiration.
“In the world of Google and Zoom and Teams, it used to be, ‘Hey, Mike, when can you get to New Jersey and we’ll try to get the group together,’ and you start doing date games. Now it’s ‘how’s Tuesday at 6 p.m.?’ And I open my computer in my living room and six other people open their computer, and you just had an interview with six people.
“I think this process will go pretty fast. I think we’re looking end of May. They’re probably saying end of June, but internally they’re targeting end of May.”
Mike Whan with an LPGA-USGA Girls Golf member (Getty Images/LPGA).
The LPGA Board of Directors, which is made up of eight LPGA members and six independent directors, will select the next commissioner. Notably, Michelle Wie West joined the Board of Directors as a player member in 2021.
The search committee is comprised of four LPGA members and three independent directors. LPGA Hall of Famer Juli Inkster, Canadian veteran Alena Sharp, Tour president Vicki Goetze-Ackerman and Marvol Barnard, who is National President of the LPGA Teaching & Club Professionals, round out the LPGA members on the search committee.
Diane Gulyas, who retired from a 36-year career with DuPont, heads the committee while Jon Iwata, a longtime executive at IBM, and former KPMG Global Chairman John Veihmeyer are the independent directors.
Inkster said early on in the process that it didn’t matter to her if the person who replaced Whan was a woman, saying that honesty was the trait players cared most about.
The LPGA board is comprised of the following Player Directors and independent board members: President Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, Lydia Ko, Pernilla Lindberg, Amy Olson, Alena Sharp, Kris Tamulis and Wie West.
Independent board members are: Diane Gulyas, Chair/Former Sr. Executive DuPont, LLC; David Fay, former executive director of the USGA; Jon Iwata, retired senior vice president and Chief Brand Officer of IBM; and Tom Schoewe, retired executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer of Walmart; Madeleine Kleiner, retired executive vice president and general counsel of Hilton Hotel Corporation; and John Veihmeyer, retired Chairman of KPMG International.
Navigating COVID-19 was a big part of Suzy Whaley’s task during the second year of her two-year presidential term that ends Thursday.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — Suzy Whaley made history the first day she became president of the PGA of America.
Nothing new there.
Whaley has been blazing trails since 2003, when she became the first woman since 1945 to qualify and play in a PGA Tour event.
It’s one thing to qualify for a PGA Tour event. It’s another to lead 29,000 PGA Professionals through the greatest health crisis of our lifetime – the coronavirus pandemic – that forced the PGA to postpone the Ryder Cup to 2021 and delay the PGA Championship to the fall and hold it without spectators.
Navigating through COVID-19 and the shutdown of golf for several months was a big part of Whaley’s task during the second year of her two-year presidential term that ends Thursday. They don’t teach these things in college.
But instead of complaining about the situation, Whaley helped find solutions and assistance while improving relationships among golf’s other governing bodies.
Sei Young Kim poses with the trophy and PGA President Suzi Whaley after winning the 2020 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club. Brian Spurlock/USA TODAY Sports
“People tend to say, ‘Oh, gosh, it was a COVID year,’ but I look at it differently,” said Whaley, the director of instruction at the Country Club at Mirasol.
“I look at it as showcasing the true depth and spirit of our PGA professionals, and what they’ve been able to accomplish for their communities during COVID-19 is something pretty special. We’ve had an opportunity to help old and new players get back into the game, and do so in a safe and responsible way. That’s what I’m most proud of.”
Whaley has always tried to downplay the historical significance of her becoming the first female leader of the world’s largest sports organization. She considers herself one of 29,000 PGA Professionals who work long hours to promote the $85 billion industry.
“First and foremost, I am a PGA Professional,” she said. “Being a woman in this role has been exciting providing leadership in a room that typically had only been done by men. I’ve had an opportunity to engage with different audiences.”
Whaley won’t get the proper sendoff afforded PGA presidents by hosting the national meeting in her hometown. COVID-19 took that away, too.
Instead, there will be a virtual meeting this week when Whaley slides into an honorary two-year role as past president and the PGA elects a new secretary that will become president in four years. Lost Tree Club resident Seth Waugh, who became the PGA’s CEO early in Whaley’s term, has called her “a force of nature.”
“I said to her mid-summer, ‘Suzy, your legacy is going to be not only being Jackie Robinson for this association, but you saw us through a crisis,’” Waugh told PGA.com. “You’ve presided over something a whole lot more important than a home Ryder Cup, that is, getting us through this. That’s what I will always remember.”
Not only has golf gotten through the worst of the pandemic because the nature of the sport lends itself to social distancing, COVID-19 might actually be a blessing in disguise for golf. Whaley said the sport this summer experienced an increase of 20 percent in rounds played over last year as people were desperate to stay active.
Suzy Whaley prepares to play a tee shot on the first hole during the first round of the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s Open. (Photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
“Now it’s our job to retain these new players and help them enjoy this great game,” Whaley said. “That’s our No.1 goal.”
The pandemic also showed how the partnerships between golf’s major governing bodies such as the PGA, the PGA Tour, the USGA and the R&A have improved in recent years. These organizations had to work together – that hasn’t always been the case; see the putter anchor issue – to reschedule golf’s most important events and help the sport re-start responsibly throughout the world.
“We couldn’t do this separately. We had to do it together,” Whaley said. “These relationships have helped us move forward when we could have stayed shut down.”
As someone who played college golf at North Carolina (she was going to become a lawyer), has played in a PGA Tour event and was captain last year of the PGA’s first Women’s Cup, Whaley is, of course, invested in promoting the sport to females.
The emergence of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, the arrival of the Women’s Cup and the awarding of the inaugural Women’s PGA Player of the Year to Joanna Coe are tangible ways Whaley’s presidency can be measured.
“Those are things I’m very proud to leave behind,” she said.
Whaley won’t disappear from the sport, even after her two-year honorary term ends in 2022. She wants to be part of the game’s growth.
“I want to get back to competing and I love to teach at Mirasol,” she said. “But I will always try to stay involved in the administration of the game. It’s what I love to do.”
