Welcome back to Golf Thursday, everyone, and happy CME Group Tour Championship week!
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It’s finally here: the finale of the 2025 LPGA Tour season—the CME Group Tour Championship—is this week from Nov. 20–23 at Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Fla. It’s the tournament that, following the green-carpeted Rolex LPGA Awards ceremony, determines the best player on the LPGA Tour in 2025.
Let’s talk about that awards ceremony quickly. Rolex Rookie of the Year Miyu Yamashita and Rolex ANNIKA Major Award winner Minjee Lee were honored for their stellar play this season. Lydia Ko was also honored among the Commissioner’s Award recipients for new LPGA Hall of Fame Members. All 11 Rolex First-Time winners were also gathered on stage to be honored for their stellar play.
There are still two awards up for grabs: the Rolex Player of the Year and the Vare Trophy. These winners will be announced after the completion of the CME Group Tour Championship, since several players are still in the running.
That’s what makes the CME Group Tour Championship so much more interesting. With only two repeat winners in this historic LPGA Tour season of 27 different victors, 2025’s Player of the Year is down to two candidates. Will it be our first repeat winner of the season, World No. 1-ranked Jeeno Thitikul? Or will Yamashita narrow the points gap and steal the title?
Let’s pivot to the Tour Championship and the Race to the CME Globe. 60 players qualified to vie for the Tour Championship trophy and the hefty $4 million winner’s check. Of those 60 players are 14 who are making their tournament debut, including rookie winners Lottie Woad and Ingrid Lindblad and young Japanese powerhouses Akie Iwai, Chisato Iwai and Rio Takeda. Also, seven past CME Group Tour champions are in the field.
One of them, Thitikul, is poised to defend. In a pre-tournament press conference on Nov. 18, she reflected on trying to focus on the task at hand while still acknowledging the game that placed her in contention for multiple awards this season.
“I think all those kind of representing like how good or how consistency you are on the whole year as awards. But I think I trying not to think, but definitely you guys remind me every week, so how not to be thinking about that, right?” Thitikul said. “I think if that trophy belong to someone else or someone that’s do the best, you need to give that to the person who deserve it. So I have nothing to do more than just 100% out there.”
Ko, the 2022 and 2014 champion of the event, is making her return this tournament to see if she can cap off what have been a few historically great seasons for her. In a press conference on Nov. 18, she reflected on the Tour’s growth and the special group of talent the organization has been faced with.
“And, you know, golf is that crazy game where—I mean, I saw Nelly’s press conference. She has better stats than last year but she hasn’t won and won seven, eight times last year. Sometimes stats isn’t it. Like if you did that you would think, okay, you would win X amount of times,” Ko said. “There so many variables and you’re playing against 143 other players. It’s just a lot of things. But I think as a Tour having better talent and more talent throughout the leaderboard is just as important as having one superstar.”
Like Ko said, World No. 2 Nelly Korda is still seeking an elusive first Tour Championship title, and what a season it would be to do it. She hasn’t yet won on Tour this season, and with her game on a bit of a rollercoaster, she just might pull it off. But, like players always say, it’s very unpredictable. There are so many variables and so many players who can make a great run to steal wins.
The gap between players at the top is close, so we must rely on a down-to-the-wire finish at the Tour Championship to see who emerges with honors.
See you next week, golf fans.
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This week in women’s golf
LPGA News
Field breakdown: 2025 CME Group Tour Championship
Five things to know about the 2025 CME Group Tour Championship
How to watch the 2025 CME Group Tour Championship
ESPN+ presents first-round featured groups coverage of CME Group Tour Championship
LPGA Tour announces 2026 schedule
Jennifer Kupcho clinches $1 million Aon Risk Reward Challenge title in final-event comeback
Award winners recognized at 2025 Rolex LPGA Awards
2025 CME Group Tour Championship to have featured groups coverage on ESPN+
Lucy Li’s weekend climb clinches her a spot in the CME Group Tour Championship
First ace, two-year Lamborghini lease, Tour Champ berth are spoils for Brooke Matthews at The ANNIKA
Miyu Yamashita clinches 2025 Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Award
Sandra Changkija becomes first woman to win Assistant PGA Professional Championship
Linn Grant breezes to her second LPGA title at The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican
Pelican Golf Club member Elizabeth Szokol retires from LPGA after second round at The ANNIKA
Bailey Tardy cards second career hole-in-one on Friday at The ANNIKA
LPGA announces additions to Board of Directors
LET News
Dagar targeting more more golden glory at Tokyo Deaflympics
Ruixin Liu joins LET after Aramco China Championship victory
Bronte Law joins new wave of athlete leaders uniting to drive change in women’s sport
Williams cements card with clutch performance in China
Tamburlini ends season on a high ahead of LPGA push
Amateur/NCAA News
The LPGA Foundation honors the next class of Leadership Academy Scholars
Temelo eyes Women’s Amateur Latin America title defense at home
Mizuno WGCA women’s college golf coaches polls for Nov. 14
College golf signing day: Top women’s players, classes for Class of 2026
Aphrodite Deng named AJGA 2025 Rolex Junior Player of the Year
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Five at The IX: Linn Grant snags second LPGA Tour win at The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican
On Sunday, Nov. 16, Linn Grant sat beside compatriot Annika Sorenstam in her post-win press conference. She became the first Swede to win this tournament, which is hosted by the Swedish legend Sorenstam. Grant’s first, second and third rounds of 68, 63 and 65, respectively, put her in great position to surge to the win on the final day. And she did, shooting a final-round 65 (-5) to stay three shots ahead of Jennifer Kupcho and clinch the title. It was Grant’s most consistent, fiery golf of her season and maybe of her career. It was a huge day for Swedish golf. Here are some snippets from Grant’s press conference after the final round.
THE MODERATOR: Joining me here today after The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican is our 2025 champion Linn Grant and tournament host Annika Sorenstam. Linn, what does it mean to be sitting here today as the champion?
LINN GRANT: Oh, I don’t even know if I can explain that. I think for myself this season has been personally quite disappointing up until now.
I said in some interviews that golf is such a vicious game and how one day you believe you can win everything and then the next you don’t believe in yourself at all. I think today was just a win for me. And I think especially with Annika and her event, I think it was maybe a win for little me.
It’s just very fun to be sitting here with you with all the history we sort of have and with all the events that I played—I think I played in all the events on like every level up until this one.
So I think it’s a true full circle both personally and sitting here with Annika as well.
Q. So missed four straight cuts, you bounce back, and then miss three straight, then you bounce back again. Can you tell us about how you persevered or what was going on, how you managed that?
LINN GRANT: I don’t know, to be fair. Like I feel like golf and this lifestyle is always a rollercoaster of trying to figure out how to get better. Sometimes it’s just about taking a step back and maybe look at yourself and be like, am I happy? Am I making the decisions that make me happy?
Sometimes that is what makes golf easier. You have to be kind of strong and confident in those decisions to be able to say, maybe I’m not playing this week because I’m not feeling it because it doesn’t make me happy, or changing just your plans or how you do things more for yourself to be true to yourself.
For me this year I think that has been really big. Like I’ve had to change a lot of things in my routines, things that I thought was just things that were good to do because other people were doing them instead of thinking like, what do I actually believe in it? What do I think makes me a better person and a better player?
Q. 52 holes, consecutive holes without a bogey. When is the last time you had that kind of stretch in tournament golf?
LINN GRANT: I don’t think I’ve ever had that kind of stretch maybe. It’s been really fun to play this week. I really love this golf course. I had a good feeling walking into it just the feeling of wanting to play golf. That’s not every week.
I just really wanted to go out and play and play as well as I could.
Q. Being such a strange game, you don’t know what you’re going to have day after day, when did you feel “it” today? When did you feel comfortable you had a good enough game to compete?
LINN GRANT: I think I’ve been feeling like that all week, which has been very relaxing. And just today, like I walked out and just kept telling myself the mantra of like whenever I rushed my thoughts I would just go back to thinking that my only job today was to play like as well as I can, to do my very best. If that’s not enough, that’s fine.
And I even said to Pontus, I mean, if we don’t win today and I still manage to do as well as I can, I’m really happy with the week because I’ve been playing really well. If someone sneaks up behind and shoots a low round, that’s their win.
Q. Was there a shot today that stood out that was particularly pleasing?
LINN GRANT: I mean, on 9 today I looked at Pontus and I said, well, I’m not playing with this pin. I’m just going to keep it left, keep it safe. I’m not going to hit out there. Then I pushed it a little and it turned out to be really good.
But I just said I almost had a heart attack because it was just like take deep breath in when I saw the shot come out. It’s one of those days where whatever I did it just worked out.
