World No. 1 cruises to seven-shot season, $4m prize and Player of the Year in Naples
Jeeno Thitikul capped a dominant LPGA season by winning the CME Group Tour Championship for the second straight year, shooting 26-under at Tiburón Golf Club to claim a four-shot victory and the largest first-place prize in women’s golf. The 22-year-old world No. 1 closed with rounds of 67-63-64-68 to finish ahead of fellow Thai star Pajaree Anannarukarn at 22-under and Nelly Korda at 20-under.
The win was Thitikul’s third of 2025 and seventh of her LPGA career, but the manner of it underlined her status as the game’s most consistent force. She made only three bogeys all week in Naples and led wire-to-wire over the final rounds, answering a Sunday charge from Anannarukarn with back-nine birdies at 10 and 13 that restored her cushion and allowed her to stroll up the 18th for a closing birdie and a 4-under 68.
By lifting the CME trophy again, Thitikul also broke Annika Sorenstam’s single-season scoring average record, posting 68.68 to edge the 10-time major champion’s 68.697 mark from 2002. That record, achieved through three wins and 12 top-five finishes, speaks to how thoroughly she separated herself from a field in which only Miyu Yamashita managed multiple victories while 27 other players won once.
The financial milestones were just as striking. Thitikul’s $4 million winner’s check pushed her 2025 earnings to over $7.5 million and her career total to roughly $17.3 million in four full seasons, vaulting her into the top 10 on the LPGA’s all-time money list. She also swept the season-long honors: Rolex Player of the Year, the Vare Trophy for low scoring average, the Race to the CME Globe and the money title, becoming the first player to win back-to-back $4 million CME first-place payouts since the purse increase.
The season-ending triumph carried added weight given Thitikul’s path to Naples. She admitted to crying after a four-putt cost her a title at the Kroger Queen City Championship and arrived at Tiburón nursing a sore left wrist from practice in Dallas, limiting her preparation and initially setting her goal as merely finishing four rounds. Instead, she delivered another composed, low-stress performance, then downplayed the idea that records had changed her, saying she still feels like “the same human being” who has to hit, chip and putt like everyone else.
For the LPGA, Thitikul’s breakout coincides with record purses and a 2026 broadcast shift that will put all North American events live on television, positioning her as the face of a tour entering a new era. With two Thai players finishing first and second in the season finale and Thitikul now holding perhaps the most coveted scoring record in women’s golf, the bar for 2026 has been set remarkably high.
