The rocky tenure of commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan

Because there are so few full-time women's golf writers, Beth Ann has an outsized influence. I wouldn't mind her takes so much if there were others to balance her out. I found this article to be an exercise in axe grinding...

For instance, to her the Solheim Cup is the greatest thing in women's golf, so she takes Mollie to task for a transportation snafu that, while regrettable, means a heck of a lot less than the millions of extra dollars the women are earning, also thanks to Mollie.

Another example: she mentions that embarrassing moment when Duffy of CME expected players to show up for a dinner and not a single one did. He called it a 'crisis of leadership'. Yet he still re-signed with the tour and poured even more money into the event. Why doesn't Beth Ann give Mollie credit for fixing that mess? Somebody must have.

I think what's happening is this: Beth Ann has been secretly and not so secretly convinced that the LPGA would become huge if the Americans started winning more. Nowadays, we are not only seeing a lot more American wins, but we even have an attractive American player who is dominating, plus a "generational talent" in Rose Zhang (hey, those are her words, it must be galling to her that her prediction of Zhang becoming a superstar player in the world beyond golf has not happened). Yet still the LPGA struggles to get attention. She has to blame somebody, and it certainly isn't going to be her faulty take that she blames.

Look, I'm no fan of Mollie's (I hate typing her long last name, so I'll just stick with Mollie); I think she's mediocre at best, and she always looks like someone just woke her from a long nap. But I can tell a hatchet job when I see one, and I don't think this article is entirely fair. Her conclusion is, 'how much opportunity is being left on the table?' My response is, if you don't know, what's the point of asking? And if you do know, please fill us in on it.

Mike Whan was a talking head, the total purse during his ten years rein didn't do much.  Mollie isn't a smooth talker like Mike, but she delivered where it counts, the purse.