NAPLES, Fla. – Jeeno Thitikul capped her best year professionally with the biggest payoff in women’s golf, along with her place in the record book by clinching the lowest scoring average for any season in the LPGA Tour‘s 75-year history.
As easy as the 22-year-old Thailand native made it look Sunday with a four-shot victory in the CME Group Tour Championship, she has memories of the road not always being so smooth.There was that four-putt finish to lose the Kroger Queen City Championship just two months ago, for example.
“I have the ice pack put in my eyes because I cried so bad,” she said.
Then came a wrist injury last week from the firm turf at home in Dallas that left her uncertain if she could get through four rounds at Tiburon Golf Club in the season finale, much less win.
“Standing here with the trophy on Sunday,” Thitikul said, “it’s just, like, more than I really, really could ask for, without a doubt.”
Inside the ropes on Tiburon’s Gold Course, she looked every bit the No. 1 player in the Women’s World Golf Rankings, a position she took over from American star Nelly Korda in early August.
Staked to a six-shot lead over Korda going into the final round, Thitikul held off an early challenge from fellow Thai player pajaree Anannarukarn with a pair of birdies early on the back nine, then sailed home for a 4-under-par 68 and a second straight victory in the season finale.
That meant another check for $4 million, the largest in women’s golf, pushing her season earnings to $7,578,300. That final birdie from 10 feet allowed her to break World golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam’s season record by the slimmest of margins: 68.681 for Thitikul this year, 68.697 for Sorenstam on the LPGA Tour’s 2002 schedule.
“I mean, like never, ever dreaming of having that record at all,” Thitikul said.
What she didn’t know was how close it got at one point Sunday.
Anannarukarn, playing in the group ahead, ran off five birdies in seven holes at the start of the round to close the gap to two shots. It remained there going to the back nine, but then Thitikul birdied the 10th and the 13th holes, and Anannarukarn dropped a shot at the par-3 12th.
The lead was back to five, and Thitikul was home free. She just didn’t look at a leaderboard until she got to the par-5 17th, unaware that her friend was on her heels.
Thitikul raised both arms when the final birdie dropped, and before long she was getting soaked with bubbly on the 18th green. Thitikul, who finished the 72-hole tournament at 26-under 262, joined jin Young Ko as the only back-to-back winners of the tour Championship.
The victory also assured her winning LPGA player of the year, an outcome that was already decided because Women’s British Open champion Miyu Yamashita, who entered the final round 16 shots out of the lead, would have had to win.
Anannarukarn’s 66 was good for a runner-up finish on the leaderboard. Korda, a seven-time winner in 2024, had to settle for third Sunday as she finished the season without a victory.
The 27-year-old Floridian faced long odds at six shots behind entering the final round and fell further back with one bogey and no birdies on the front nine. She holed out for an eagle on No. 11 and shot 31 on the back for a closing 68. Korda still has the mixed-team Grant Thornton Invitational and the PNC Championship with her father next month.
Asked to describe the year, Korda called it “a grind.”
“I feel like there was a lot of ups and downs, and it