NAPLES, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The stakes are so high at the CME Group Tour Championship that whoever wins will make more in one week than any player in the 30 tournaments leading up to the LPGA\u2019s season finale.<\/p>\n
The $11 million prize fund is second only to the U.S. Women\u2019s Open ($12 million) on the LPGA Tour. But the $4 million that goes to the winner makes it the richest in women\u2019s golf, and third in all of golf behind the men\u2019s Tour Championship ($10 million) and The Players Championship ($4.5 million).<\/p>\n
More than money is at stake for Nelly Korda.<\/p>\n
She could become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2010 to go from winning seven times one year to no victories the next year.<\/p>\n
Korda won seven times a year ago and stamped herself as the dominant figure in women\u2019s golf, all of which might contribute to a year of astonishing parity in which 28 of the 30 official tournaments had different winners. Jeeno Thitikul and Miyuu Yamashita are the only players to win twice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely been an interesting year I would say,\u201d Korda said Wednesday at Tiburon Golf Club. \u201cThere has been good, there has been flashes of really good and there has been flashes of I don\u2019t know what just happened. But I would say overall that\u2019s just kind of golf. Coming off last year it\u2019s kind of always going to be difficult to back that up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut yeah, it definitely sucks in a way that I didn\u2019t get to raise a trophy,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I still have one more week to try to get that done.\u201d<\/p>\n
The difference is Korda\u2019s game didn\u2019t feel that far off, and the numbers support that. She also is proud that she stayed relatively healthy all year without having to miss chunks of time, although she skipped both Asia swings.<\/p>\n
Her scoring average is 69.58 \u2014 down from only 69.56 a year ago. She was runner-up in the season opener, a runner-up in the U.S. Women\u2019s Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt comes down to sometimes one shot. It\u2019s like one putt lips out and you don\u2019t get your momentum. It\u2019s just such a fine line when it comes to golf,\u201d Korda said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not disappointed with the season. Obviously, like I would\u2019ve loved to raise a couple of trophies. When it comes down to my stats and the way my body has felt, it\u2019s been amazing compared to … I don\u2019t know, since 2021 I think I\u2019ve been out for a couple months every single year with injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI always like to take the positives out of the year,\u201d she said. \u201cI still have one more week. You never know what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Equally intriguing is the race between the two multiple winners this year. Thitikul replaced and then moved well beyond Korda at No. 1 in the women\u2019s world ranking. Yamashita won the Women\u2019s British Open for her first major and already won the LPGA rookie of the year.<\/p>\n
Both have a chance at the coveted LPGA player of the year, which comes with one point toward LPGA Hall of Fame status. <\/p>\n
Yamashita would need to win to have a chance in the points-based award, and that would make her the first player to win outright the rookie of the year and player of the year in the same season since Nancy Lopez in 1978. Sung Hyun Park of South Korea was rookie of the year and shared player of the year honors in 2017.<\/p>\n
Minjee Lee leads the LPGA money list at $3,822,388, based mostly on her KPMG Women\u2019s PGA title and the best performance in the five majors. Thitikul is second, and Yamashita is third. No one else has earned more than $3 million.<\/p>\n
The key for so many players is just getting to the Tour Championship because all 60 players only have to win to take the richest prize in women\u2019s golf.<\/p>\n
That includes Lottie Woad, who was still at Florida State this year and even extended the lease on her apartment in Tallahassee. But she won the Women\u2019s Irish Open as an amateur, nearly won a major in France, turned pro and then won the Women\u2019s Scottish Open.<\/p>\n
Four months later, she\u2019s No. 10 in the world ranking, playing in the CME Group Tour Championship and has a shot at winning $4 million. She was asked what kind of car she could buy with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just trying to focus on getting my license first before I think about that,\u201d the English star said with a laugh. \u201cIt needs to fit golf clubs, and also … I live in college towns, so I don\u2019t want it to stand out too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/p>\n
Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NAPLES, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The stakes are so high at the CME Group Tour Championship that whoever wins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-294280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}