The LPGA Tour closed its doors with an undisputed winner: Thailand's Jeeno Thitikul. The world number one completed the season with her third title, the CME Group Championship, which boasts a $4 million prize for the winnerthe largest check awarded in any women's sport since Yelena Rybakina's $5.25 million WTA Finals win this November. Only Japan's Yamashita, with two titles, has also won more than one tournament among the 31 held by the world's premier circuit in its most democratic season.
The 22-year-old Asian golfer repeated for the second consecutive year as the league's top earner, confirming the quiet dominance she has exerted over the past year and a half, during which she has won five titles, bringing her earnings in four years as a professional to $17.36 million, placing her seventh on the all-time money list.
In addition, the Dallas-based player set a new LPGA record for average score. She finished the year with a 68.68 average, surpassing Annika Sorenstam's 2002 record of 68.697. "Winning the Vare Trophy (Rolex Player of the Year) gives me goosebumps because it means joining a group of the best in history."
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Thitikul, a golfer who showed promise from a very young age, before she was 13, of becoming a professional starshe was the world's number one amateur for 12 weeksalso suffered setbacks. He revealed this at the post-tournament press conference.
Jeeno Thitikul, statements
"I remember the day I arrived in Dallas after the Kroger," last September, after having given away the title with four putts on the final hole. "I put a cold compress on my eyes because I cried so much. That's what I remember. And then, voluntarily, I took a picture like this. I wanted to remind myself that the day you get there, or the day you experience happiness in your life, there will also be days of sadness. But neither one nor the other defines who I am."
At the CME Group Open, the tournament in Naples, Florida, where she successfully defended her title, Thitikul, who has yet to win a major, triumphed by four strokes over her compatriot Pajaree Anannarukarn and six over Nelly Korda, the American from whom she dethroned the world number one ranking. Carlota Ciganda, in the year she returned to winning ways on the LPGA Tour, finished 39th. "How will you celebrate?" the champion was asked. "I don't know, I think I'll go shopping," she replied.
