1,200%.

That is not a typo. It’s not clickbait. It is the real, verified, and staggering number that represents the explosion in ticket sales for a Wednesday pro-am golf event. All because a 22-year-old woman announced she would swing a golf club.

What happened on November 13, 2024, at the Pelican Golf Club in Bellaire, Florida, was not just about one basketball star playing golf. It was a cultural event, a marketing masterclass, and, most tellingly, a mirror held up to the world of women’s sports. It proved that greatness doesn’t recognize boundaries, and it may have forever changed two sports by exposing a shocking, uncomfortable truth.

The scene at 6:30 a.m. was the first clue that all normal protocols were out the window. At most pro-am events, this is the quiet hour, a time for volunteers, coffee, and the handful of dedicated fans. On this Wednesday, the scene looked “nothing like a typical golf tournament.” It looked, as many described it, like someone had “transported a sold-out basketball arena to a golf course.”

Hundreds of fans were already lined up in the pre-dawn darkness. The detail that made tournament organizers do a double-take: “more than half of them were wearing Indiana Fever jerseys with the number 22 on the back.” Basketball jerseys at a golf tournament, before sunrise. Security teams, veterans of the event, found themselves scrambling, calling for backup to manage crowds they had never anticipated.

This was the Caitlin Clark effect, in real-time, and the LPGA was ready to capitalize.

In a move that shocked their own production staff, Golf Channel executives made the call: they moved their entire studio show 90 minutes earlier and deployed “full tournament level coverage.” This meant multiple cameras, graphics packages, and the entire production apparatus normally reserved for the final, decisive rounds of a major championship. This was a complete, expensive program overhaul for a Wednesday practice round.

NBC Sports Executive Tom Knapp later admitted they’d “sharpened their pencils on the budget,” a clear indication of the significant, calculated investment. Why? Because they understood this wasn’t just about one morning’s ratings. It was about the genuine possibility of “converting even a small fraction of one athlete’s enormous following into lifelong golf fans.”

The LPGA’s strategic brilliance didn’t stop there. The pairing was a deliberate “power play.” They placed Clark alongside Nelly Korda, the undisputed world’s number one ranked player, fresh off a historically dominant season. It was a fusion of two dominant forces, and the gallery that followed them was unlike anything LPGA officials had ever seen.

These were not existing golf fans. A couple in their 50s from Texas, wearing Fever jerseys, admitted they’d driven six hours just to watch Clark play nine holes. Young girls held handmade signs: “We love Caitlin Clark.” One teenage fan had convinced her parents to drive from Indiana, treating the pro-am like a “once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage.”

This is precisely what tournament owner Dan Doyle Jr. meant when he revealed the 1200% spike. These were new fans, WNBA followers, willing to wake up before sunrise “just to watch their hero try something completely different.”

Then came the moment that captured exactly who Caitlin Clark is. Her opening tee shot, under the gaze of thousands, revealed the nerves. She “pulled it left,” splashing it into a water hazard. But as the fierce competitor inside her visibly winced, something else took over. She turned to the massive gallery, “and she smiled.” Not a forced PR smile, but the “genuine, warm Caitlin Clark smile” that has made her one of America’s most beloved athletes. She called out a friendly apology, teed up another ball, and hit a great shot to a roar of cheers.

No drama. No thrown clubs. Just “honest acknowledgement that golf is incredibly difficult,” and the authenticity to own it. This is her magic.

The day was filled with moments that transcended sport. Korda later revealed that Clark’s basketball journey had inspired her “to start watching WNBA games for the first time in her life.” After their round, the two exchanged jerseys, a powerful image of solidarity that went viral in minutes. Clark was then joined by the legend herself, Annika Sörenstam, a 10-time major champion. When asked if she’d ever seen such a buzz on a Wednesday, Sörenstam’s answer was immediate: “Not on the LPGA tour. Never anything like this.”

LPGA Commissioner Molly Marcoux Samaan, watching from the crowd, understood the phenomenon she was witnessing. She called Clark “box office” and “a true needle mover,” the kind of star that “doesn’t just draw existing fans… but actually creates new fans who stick around.” The numbers back it up: Clark’s social media posts about the event generated an estimated 34 million impressions for the LPGA.

But this story of a warm, universal embrace becomes deeply troubling when contrasted with the reality of Clark’s own WNBA rookie season.

Throughout that year, she faced “physical play that often crossed into dangerous territory.” She endured “flagrant fouls, cheap shots,” and “hits that left commentators questioning why officials weren’t providing better protection.” She was subjected to “trash talk that went beyond competitive banter into personal attacks.”

Most disturbingly, this wasn’t just on-court hazing. The video alleges a “subtle diminishment” from “some veteran players,” “league executives,” and “some media members.” They “openly questioned whether she deserved the attention,” as if record television ratings and sold-out arenas across the league “somehow needed justification.” The “Caitlin Clark effect” became, bizarrely, “simultaneously a compliment and an insult.”

In golf, the reception was “entirely, remarkably different.”

There was no resentment, only respect. LPGA pros went out of their way to welcome her. Maria Fassi “literally chased Clark down the 18th fairway… to personally thank her for supporting women’s sports.” Sörenstam “spoke glowingly” about her. Korda expressed “sincere gratitude.” Two-time PGA major champion Zach Johnson, after playing with her, dismissed her on-court talent to make a bigger point: “She’s an even better person off the court. Quality all the way.”

The message from the entire golf world, from pros to legends to executives, was clear and consistent. Clark “wasn’t seen as a threat” or someone “getting undeserved celebrity.” She was “celebrated as exactly what she is: a generational talent whose presence benefits everyone.”

Clark is not trying to be a professional golfer; she carries a 16 handicap and hits bad shots. But that, ultimately, is the point. When the world’s most exciting basketball player is seen enjoying golf and “laughing off mistakes,” it “normalizes the game for millions of young girls” who never saw themselves in that sport. She is a bridge.

What her golf outing accomplished, perhaps unintentionally, was to expose a deep, uncomfortable truth. It revealed a sport in the LPGA that is smart, agile, and secure enough to welcome a transcendent star with open arms, using her presence to lift their entire league. And it held a mirror to her own league, the WNBA, revealing a baffling, troubling culture that, at times, seemed to meet its greatest asset with suspicion, jealousy, and “dangerous” hostility.

One week of golf may have done more to change the conversation around women’s sports than an entire season of basketball, simply by showing the world what it looks like to celebrate greatness, without an asterisk.