Why is the LPGA lagging behind when it should be gaining ground?

It is the perfect time to work in women’s sport.

The World Cup, which begins in Australia and New Zealand later this month, will break records for both ticket sales and TV ratings. The WTA announced a recent initiative to achieve equal prize-money with the men’s tour before 2027. This standard has been in place for several years at Grand Slams.

Women’s Final Four, Women’s College World Series and other sports are attracting more viewers. The NCAA will be able to capitalize on this trend when the television rights for these events come up for renewal. Some of the athletes in these sports have generated six-figure deals for marketing.

The professional team sports also undergo a transformation. Seattle Storm sold a 14. percent stake for $151 million, setting a benchmark in the WNBA. The NWSL has seen a 50 percent increase in both attendance and streaming views at the half-way point of the season.

There’s no debate anymore about the place of women’s sport in the sports landscape. They aren’t just niches; they have a real mainstream appeal with the right marketing and investment.

It is therefore all the more troubling and confusing that the LPGA appears to have stagnated or worse, has been left behind in the moment when it should be taking flight like a rocket.

The U.S. Women’s Open, which will take place at Pebble Beach this week for the first ever time in the history of the tournament, is expected to offer the largest prize in women’s tennis, estimated at $10 million, with approximately $1.8 million going the winner from last year. NBC will dedicate primetime coverage of a women’s golf major on Saturday and Sunday for the first ever.

Rose Zhang will be the star, a 20 year old from Southern California. She turned professional in May after spending 141 weeks at the top of the world rankings. She won her first LPGA Tour start after becoming the world’s No. 1 amateur. She also holds the women’s Pebble course record, having shot 63 two years ago, while playing for Stanford.

This is the moment when women’s golf will be able to capitalize on its current momentum. Is the infrastructure in place for women’s golf to take advantage of this moment?

It would be unfair to put the entire weight of the sport onto the shoulders of someone who was still in college just a few short months ago. Zhang may very well be competing on Sunday but it’s likely she won’t. It’s just the nature of sport.

She was in the mix a few weeks back at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. A Sunday charge at Baltusrol golf club almost led to her winning a major at her second professional tournament.

The final round had me glued to my television. The final round was one of the most exciting golf matches I have seen in the past year. China’s Ruoning Yi, a 20-year old phenom took the title. On social media it did not seem that any of this was making a splash – as confirmed by the mediocre TV number (658,00 viewers), which was actually lower than it was last year.

If the LPGA, NBC and a charismatic American star trying to win a Major fresh out of College on one of America’s most famous and historic golf course is not able to sell it, then that’s a bad sign for the health of the Tour.

Women’s golf is one of the sports that has been undervalued for a long time.

Will we ever reach the point that a U.S. Men’s Open final is rated higher than a U.S. Open women’s final, as we see so often in a Grand Slam tennis final? Most likely not.

The LPGA, unlike the men’s golf, offers a wide range of clubs, spins, and strategies to attack holes, which go beyond just driving the ball as far as you can with a driver.

Why would you not like to watch golf?

It’s now time for golf’s major stakeholders to take advantage of Zhang’s presence and embrace the LPGA to expand the sport’s audience. This requires financial investment and passion, neither of which are being displayed at a level that is acceptable to meet the current moment.

The USGA has committed at least $10,000,000 to the purse for the Women’s Open. The men still make half as much. It’s the same for the R&A (from $7 million to $14 millions) and PGA of America ($10 million), which has doubled in prize money since a few short years, but is still far behind the $17.5million that the men earn.

Instead of making excuses that the women’s sport doesn’t sell as many tickets, or has as many fans as men’s sports, ask yourself why this is the case when a similar sport like tennis can sell women’s games at a high level.

Do you hold tournaments to just hold tournaments or do you “grow the game”? This is the catchphrase that you have heard a lot over the past year to justify all sorts of morally questionable behavior. If these organizations invested more in the sport, maybe they would put themselves under pressure to market it.

In 2014, the USGA took the bold step of staging the Women’s Open in Pinehurst a week after the Men’s Open, which meant that it would be promoted for a whole week. Surprise! Television ratings increased 92 percent compared to the previous year.

There are certainly challenges. The fact that so many South Korean players have joined the tour in the past 20 years, some of whom do not speak English well or don’t feel comfortable speaking it, has created some challenges for American audiences.

The world’s No. Jin Young Ko is an excellent speaker of English with a charming personality. Two Americans, two Canadians, one Australian, two New Zealanders, two Koreans, and women from Thailand and China make up the current top 10 in the LPGA race.

When healthy, Nelly Korda, the Olympic gold medalist, could be the face and voice of the sport. Megan Khang’s parents, who fled Laos during the Vietnam War and came to the U.S., have one of the most interesting sports histories.

If you cannot sell this, especially in a sport where more women are needed to play and watch after years of being treated like an Old Boys Club, then you lack imagination.

We see other sports doing it all around us. Another window has opened with Rose Zhang, the LPGA’s new-faced star. Will golf walk through it finally?

Follow USA Today Sports columnist Dan Wolken via Twitter @DanWolken