LPGA Amateurs Golf Association

Overview

The LPGA Amateurs Golf Association (LPGA Amateurs) is the recreational arm of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), serving as the official amateur community for women golfers of all abilities. It provides a structured, welcoming environment for women to learn, play, and connect through golf across the United States and internationally.

Origins

The LPGA Amateurs traces its roots to the Executive Women’s Golf Association (EWGA), founded in 1991 by Nancy Oliver in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The EWGA emerged at a time when business and social golf networks were still dominated by men, with limited access for women in corporate or professional settings.

Oliver’s vision was both practical and progressive: to use golf as a platform for women’s advancement — blending recreation, confidence, and career connection. Over the next 25 years, the EWGA grew into a global network of more than 100 chapters and 15,000 (2025) members, building opportunities for women to participate, compete, and lead through golf.

Merger and LPGA Integration

In 2018, the EWGA was formally integrated into the LPGA Foundation, becoming the LPGA Amateurs Golf Association. The merger reflected a strategic commitment by the LPGA to unite women’s golf under one umbrella — linking pathways from first-time players to tour professionals.

This integration also positioned the LPGA Amateurs as the community gateway within the LPGA ecosystem, helping the organisation reach beyond the professional game to a broader, more diverse base of recreational players.

Programs and Activities

Local Chapters: More than 120 active chapters across the U.S., Canada, and internationally, each run by volunteers who organise leagues, mentoring, and community events.
Championship Series: A national competition structure culminating in the LPGA Amateurs Championship Finals, one of the largest women-only amateur events in the world.
Education and Networking: Leadership development, career-building, and life-skills workshops continue the EWGA’s legacy of using golf as a tool for empowerment.
Inclusion and Belonging: The LPGA Amateurs welcome women of all backgrounds, skill levels, and ages — from social beginners to serious competitors.

From EWGA to LPGA Amateurs: Continuity of Purpose

The transition from the EWGA to the LPGA Amateurs was more than a rebranding — it was an evolution in scale and scope.

The EWGA had proven that women wanted organised, meaningful golf experiences outside traditional club structures.
The LPGA, recognising this success, offered the framework and visibility to amplify that mission.

Yet the heart of the organisation remained the same:

Volunteer-driven leadership.
A focus on community and participation.
The belief that golf is a pathway to confidence, connection, and opportunity.

This continuity reflects how modern women’s golf organisations can evolve without losing their founding values — a recurring theme across women’s golf history.

Relationship to the LPGA

While part of the LPGA Foundation, the LPGA Amateurs retains its own identity and mission. It serves as:

A grassroots entry point to golf.
A bridge between casual play and formal competition.
A leadership incubator for women within and beyond golf.

Through its affiliation, the LPGA Amateurs benefit from the LPGA’s visibility, partnerships, and educational resources — while maintaining an independent volunteer structure at the local level.

Contrast with Senior Women’s Associations

The LPGA Amateurs and the Senior Women’s Golf Associations both nurture women’s participation and leadership in golf — yet they represent distinct traditions within the game’s social and institutional landscape.

Senior women’s associations — such as the Veteran Ladies Golf Association (founded 1921) and its international counterparts — arose organically from within the amateur game, built by women who sought to preserve the spirit of fair play, friendship, and independent governance. Their leadership evolved from within the game itself, not from professional or commercial models.

By contrast, the LPGA Amateurs emerged in the late 20th century as part of a modern, corporate-professional era of women’s golf, aligned with business networks and supported by institutional frameworks. While the senior women’s groups operate independently of governing bodies, the LPGA Amateurs are integrated within one — reflecting two different but complementary forms of agency:

Autonomy through self-governance (Senior Women’s/Veteran associations).
Empowerment through institutional inclusion (LPGA Amateurs).

Together, they illustrate the continuum of women’s golf leadership — from preservation and guardianship to outreach and expansion — both vital to the long story of women’s participation in golf.

Commentary

The LPGA Amateurs embody a new chapter in women’s golf — confident, visible, and institutionally supported. Yet beneath this modern structure lies a familiar heartbeat: the same determination that once drove senior and veteran women to create spaces of their own. Where earlier generations built independence through quiet perseverance, today’s players build influence through connection and visibility. Both paths reflect the same truth — that women’s golf endures not through permission, but through participation, and through the steady hands of those who continue to make a place for others to belong.