Few things can be taken as absolutes in the world of pro sports, but here is one: Hockey players make better golfers than other pro athletes.
(Discuss among yourselves. My mind is made up on the matter.)
So far as the LPGA family is concerned – from Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan to hundreds of players – the hope is that sentiment holds true and a former NHL communications officer can similarly transition smoothly into the game of golf.
Circuitous as it is, consider this an introduction to Matt Chmura who last spring was named Chief Marketing, Communications and Brand Officer with the LPGA. Given that the LPGA was midway through its season when Chmura came on board, the Taunton, Mass., native and longtime communications/marketing official with the Boston Bruins can be excused for feeling like the 2023 season, which commences next Thursday at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in Orlando, is his rookie campaign.
“I’m massively excited,” said Chmura. “There’s a lot of ground work to do. For now, I’m spending a lot of time on marketing data, which is my sweet spot.”
Now if you’re thinking, “Where is the common ground between being involved in communications and marketing during a 15-year career with an NHL team and moving into a similar role with women’s golf?” keep an open mind. Both organizations are established brands – the Bruins date to 1924; the LPGA, the oldest women’s sports league in the world, was born in 1950 – and the task that Chmura had in Boston is similar to what he’s entrusted with in golf.
“When I joined the Bruins (in 2006), the organization had largely lost touch with the fan base in the Boston market. As a management group,” said Chmura, “we found ways to reconnect with the fan base and rebuilt the Bruins’ brand, in Boston and globally.”
Chmura arrived on the Bruins’ scene at a time when digital was starting to dwarf print and no longer could pro teams sit back and let newspapers and magazines help publicize their product. Newspapers and magazines were phasing out coverage and today’s press boxes at sporting events are a shell of what they once were.
Yet teams are more popular than ever and fans’ appetites need to be satisfied. Who is going to step in? The teams are. They are telling their stories to fans with a crew of digital folks who shoot video, maneuver social media channels, and post content to a website that is constantly updating.
Indeed, we’re eons removed from those days when pro teams would pay newspapers to send sportswriters to their games, even those on the road.
Chmura, who joined the Bruins three years after graduating from Holy Cross (’03) and later received his MBA from Yale, left the Bruins in 2021 to pursue marketing opportunities in banking.
Then came inquiries. Would he be interested in returning to sports with the LPGA? The answer was an emphatic yes, because Chmura has always been passionate about the game. He was a member of the Div. 2 state championship team at Coyle-Cassidy in 1997 and for years he played his golf at Segregansett CC in Taunton, a sleeper good club for competitive golf. (Chmura is a member at The Kittansett Club these days.)
“This is a chance to work in a sport I love, a sport that is opening doors and a product that a lot of people are interested in,” said Chmura. He’s a true product of this digital age where data and metrics are important; where it’s not enough to understand social media, it’s mandatory that you be a master; where you must market your brand with vigor and with all team members in synch.
Whether you’re pushing a team like the Bruins, or a group of elite women golfers who play an individual sport, “the challenges of marketing are similar,” said Chmura.
“The goal is to create an emotional connection between our players/tour and sports fans and then find ways to deepen the engagement with current LPGA fans while finding new fans to engage with.”
A former athletic director at Princeton who was named LPGA Commissioner in May of 2021, Marcoux Samaan a year later was involved in the process that brought Chmura to the LPGA.
“This is a critical role as we focus on aggressively elevating and integrating the LPGA brands,” she said. “Matt’s professional experiences and his impressive track record of success are perfectly aligned with this role.”
No one, least of all Chmura, would deny that it’s a good time to be tied to the LPGA. For the first time, total purses will surpass $100 million in 2023 and among the 33 tournaments, two will be on vaunted stages usually the domain of men -- U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach and the KPMG Women’s LPGA at Baltusrol.
Lydia Ko piled up $4.3 million and a whopping 27 women earned more than $1 million in ’22. Dipping down into the college ranks, Stanford golfers Rose Zhang and Rachel Heck signed lucrative NIL deals with brand giants Adidas and Nike, respectively.
There’s more. Augusta National has a hit a grand slam with its showcase Augusta National Women’s Amateur as a prelude to the Masters; the fastest growing sector in the U.S. golf population is girls 18 and under; Alex Baldwin is President of the PGA Tour’s developmental circuit, the Korn Ferry Tour; and a woman (and full disclosure, a good friend and former colleague at Golfweek), Beth Ann Nichols, is the president of the Golf Writers Association of America.
So, are things looking up for women in golf and the LPGA? Most definitely. But Chmura hasn’t come aboard just to ride the momentum. “I love being a part of building things,” he said. “I am bullish about how amazing our athletes are and how much growth is ahead for the LPGA.”
