Mollie Marcoux Samaan has been the LPGA commissioner since 2021, when she was named the ninth commissioner in the league's history. After a long run working at Princeton Athletics, she took over the women's golf industry and has become a popular figure ever since.
She may not be as well-known as her PGA Tour counterpart Jay Monahan, but she's got an interesting look at the game and there is a lot to learn about her.
What to know about Mollie Marcoux, the LPGA Tour commissioner
5) She's a 3-sport athlete
One might expect that the commissioner of a golf league would be heavily into golf and that would be true of Marcoux. However, she didn't even play golf in college. At Princeton University, she played both ice hockey and soccer. She played golf for a long time as a youth, but at the collegiate level she was doing other things.
4) She got her start very young
Marcoux has been involved with the sport of golf for a very long time. She revealed in an interview with Links Magazine that she began playing at 12 years old:
"I started playing when I was 12 years old, but my family did not play. We didn’t belong to a country club. I started playing because my older brother picked up the game with his friends at the local public course... I think they bought [clubs] at a garage sale. I started going down to the public course and just became obsessed with it, so I played a lot of golf as a kid, just on my own."
This undoubtedly gives her a strong perspective that allows her to be a good commissioner.
3) She once said she'd talk to LIV Golf
Mollie Marcoux is the LPGA Tour commissioner, which puts her in similar standing as Jay Monahan for the PGA Tour. When Greg Norman said he wanted to look into an LIV Golf for women, that kind of thing (well before the merger) might have been shut down immediately. However, Marcoux said she'd at least talk to the controversial former golfer about the possibility. She said (via Golfweek):
“It’s my responsibility to evaluate every opportunity. I would engage in a conversation if it would achieve our aim of promoting women’s golf, but there needs to be input from players and sponsors. There’s a lot of factors to consider before we do business with LIV Golf.”
With the new merger, this may not even be a consideration for Norman and LIV, but they at least would have had Mollie Marcoux's attention.
2) She hit a hole in one at Princeton
Despite not playing for the golf team, she proved as AD of Princeton that she could have. She admitted her top golf highlight was from her time there:
"The only hole in one I’ve ever had was during my tenure as Princeton athletic director. It was actually my first day on the job; I was with the lacrosse program during an outing and was sitting on the same hole hitting shots all day long as groups would come through, so I had a lot of practice."
It might be too late, but she could probably compete in a tournament.
1) Mollie Marcoux believes the LPGA is a team sport
Golf is an individual sport in that players compete by themselves, but she once said that the Tour is a team sport. They all play for the same team (the LPGA) and the players, partners and everyone involved work together to make the tour great.