LPGA's Chevron, the season's first major, changing venues after just three years in Texas
Beth Ann Nichols- The Chevron Championship is moving to Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston starting in 2026.
- Memorial Park, a public course, also hosts the PGA Tour's Texas Children's Houston Open.
- The move comes after the event was held at The Club at Carlton Woods for only three years.
- This change may end the tradition of the winner's celebratory jump into a pond.
Big changes are coming to the Chevron Championship. The event is once again on the move, this time to a familiar location on the golf calendar. The first women’s major of the season is headed to Houston's Memorial Park Golf Course in 2026, multiple sources have confirmed to Golfweek.
The event, slated for April 23-26, will be held one month after the PGA Tour's Texas Children's Houston Open at Memorial Park, a municipal track that ranks eighth on Golfweek's best public access courses in Texas.
Memorial Park first hosted the Houston Open in 1947 and enjoyed a long stretch from 1951 to 1963. After undergoing a $34 million renovation, funded by the Astros Golf Foundation and designed by Tom Doak, the tournament returned to Memorial Park in the fall of 2020.
When the Houston Open moved back to the spring portion of the PGA Tour calendar last year, Tour players raved about the condition of the course, calling it terrific prep for the Masters.
When reached for comment on the changes, the LPGA issued the following statement:
"We're in active discussions finalizing next season's schedule and are excited about what's ahead. There are still some moving parts, but we feel really good about the progress we've made. We look forward to sharing the 2026 schedule next week," said Ricki Lasky, the LPGA's chief tour business and operations officer.
The Chevron Championship controversially moved from the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills in Rancho Mirage, California, to the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at the Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas, in the spring of 2023.
Steve Salzman, the club’s CEO and general manager, told Golfweek several years ago that he hoped the tournament would be at Carlton Woods for the next 51 years, referring to the length of time the event was held at Mission Hills.
The club, when reached for comment, declined to comment. There were still two years left on the contract.
The 2025 Chevron, won by Mao Saigo, was clouded in controversy on Sunday when Golf Twitter erupted as players – including Saigo – used the grandstand as a backstop when going for the green in two. Ariya Jutanugarn actually hit the volunteer she was aiming at after her ball bounced off the grandstand.
The move to Memorial Park will enable organizers to take advantage of the blueprint that’s already in place for the men’s event and hopefully draw a larger crowd.
With no pond around the 18th green at Memorial, however, it may mark the end of the celebratory jump originally made famous in California at Poppies Pond, unless someone gets creative.
That, too, became a hot topic earlier this year when Saigo and her friends – none of whom could properly swim – struggled to get back to the dock in the murky Texas water.
In addition to a course change, IMG is out as the event operator and promoter. There was a long-term plan in place under previous LPGA leadership for the tour to fully own the season's first major. It remains unclear who will operate the event going forward, though it's likely that the Astros Golf Foundation will have some involvement. Formed in 2018 by Astros owner Jim Crane, the foundation operates the Houston Open.
The LPGA is expected to release the 2026 schedule at next week’s CME Group Tour Championship, where it will likely unveil more details about the future of Chevron, the first of five majors on the tour’s calendar.
(Editor's note: The headline was altered to reflect three years in Texas.)