Tweeth On Tap: Let's Fix the Chevron, Please

Let’s start with the tournament itself. Saigo won her first major on the first hole of a five-woman playoff, after Ariya Jutanugarn tossed the baby out of the window with a stubbed chip on the 18^th hole of regulation, leading to a playoff-forcing bogey. Ruoning Yin failed to catch the falling baby when she inexplicably 3-putted from 10 feet after hitting her second shot on the par-5 18^th to makeable eagle range. Saigo’s birdie putt found the cup a few minutes later, and the 2024 rookie of the year found herself in the major championship winner’s circle for the first time.

And then, she almost drowned. Folks, many things have got to change about the Chevron, but let’s start with the leap into Not-Poppie’s-Pond. A relic from the days when this tournament had an identity, the compulsory plunge into the murky Houston water hazard elicits nothing but cringe from die-hards, and confusion from the uninitiated. 

Who, if anyone, asked for this? The Chevron needs an identity, to be certain, but it’s not going to find it by cribbing from its prior self. So what, then, does it need? Here are three ideas:

Idea #1: Change the Format

There are, somehow, five majors on the LPGA calendar, all of which are 72-hole stroke play affairs. If we’re going to create major championships out of thin air, especially if we’re going to have one more every year than the men’s game has, can we at least explore the idea of a different format? The PGA Championship was a match-play event for the first 40-plus years of its existence, so there’s precedent out there for a non-stroke-play major. 

Can we do away with the T-Mobile Match Play farce at Shadow Creek, played two weeks before the Chevron, and migrate the format to Houston? Opponents will say it could harm attendance if the big names don’t make the finals, but there was hardly a big game hunter to be found on Sunday’s stroke play leaderboard, and the tournament can’t give away its tickets as is, so what are we really risking here? Create an immediate identity for the tournament by making it The Match Play Major. 

Golf sickos everywhere would rejoice.

Idea #2: Shrink the Field

There’s another, slightly better-known, major championship that gets played at the same golf course in April every year, and that tournament presents the smallest field in major championship golf. To get an invite to the Masters, a player has to be among the very best in his sport, or win his way in via a narrow channel of qualifying competitions. The field of 75 or so players is distinct in golf, and the Chevron could take a page from the Augusta National playbook by limiting the field to only the very best. Crucially, they could carve out exemptions, as Augusta does, for amateur players, who are often the rising stars of the women’s game. 

Yes, Asterisk Talley teed it up this week, and no, she did not play well, but creating more avenues for elite amateurs to play major championship golf would be a value-add to the sport, not to mention an additional identity creator for the Chevron.

Idea #3: Fix the Course

God, this golf course is bland. It looks nice, sure, and by all accounts, the membership and tournament organizers are first-class. But there is nothing to be captured by, visually or strategically, on this golf course, and the egregious grandstand backboarding behind the 18^th green is merely the tip of the iceberg. I know Chevron (the company) wants the Chevron (the tournament) in its backyard, but either let this event travel the region to higher quality golf courses with more character (Southern Hills, anyone?) or bring in actual golf course architects with real vision to do what pretend golf architects coasting on their playing-career reputations can’t – create a meaningful venue for major championship golf.

Whatever happens from here, it’s clear the tournament needs something to create an identity for itself, before it – and god willing, fingers crossed, none of its players – drowns.