No American player has won the Rolex Player of the Year since Stacy Lewis in 2014.
Lilia Vu’s breakout season has her in position to become the first American to win the Rolex LPGA Player of the Year Award since Stacy Lewis in 2014. Before Lewis won it for the first time in 2012, no American won the title since Beth Daniel in 1994.
As the LPGA season nears its final stretch, Vu holds a 21-point advantage over Celine Boutier and Ruoning Yin with a total of 154 points. Lydia Ko won last year’s POY Award with 180 points. Those who win a POY title also earn an LPGA Hall of Fame point.
Player of the Year points are distributed only to top-10 finishes on the LPGA. A victory at a non-major is worth 30 points while a runner-up showing is worth 12.
There are seven events left on the LPGA schedule, and this week’s Volunteers of America stop in Texas marks the last domestic event until mid-November.
Here’s how the top five players on the POY list currently stand:
NAPLES, Fla. – It’s been seven years since Lydia Ko won the Rolex LPGA Player of the Year award. So much life has transpired since then. She remembers being asked seven years ago in the media room at Tiburon Golf Club if she’d rather win the $1 million prize or the POY title. Ko, who has long been wise beyond her years, did not pick the money.
“Those kind of opportunities don’t come very often,” she said.
Back then, she couldn’t have imagined that she’d endure a three-year victory drought. That she’d one day dip below No. 50 in the world.
Now, at age 25, she’s back in position to win the Player of the Year award for a second time, leading Minjee Lee by a single point at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. She essentially has the Vare Trophy wrapped up for a second consecutive year.
Since 2015, Ko has worn a Rolex that has ‘Player of the Year’ engraved. A daily reminder of what’s possible.
“For me, a lot of ups and downs whether in golf and in my personal life have happened since 2015,” said Ko. “So if I was to get it, it would just be really cool because it would be like a summary, and all of those moments have added this moment right now. Yeah, I think it would be more special.”
The Vare Trophy and Player of the Year awards each come with an LPGA Hall of Fame point. It takes 27 to earn admission into one of the toughest Halls in all of sports. Ko isn’t exactly sure how many points she needs (five), but she does know how hard they are to collect.
“When I think about my last three wins in these last couple of years,” said Ko, “for me winning in Hawaii, I waited – I know some people wait longer – but it was three years pretty much until that win. I just know now that it’s just not as easy, and that’s why when these opportunities come, yes, I would like to grab it because I know they are not around the corner every single time.”
Ko, who is getting married later this year, said from the start of her professional career that she wouldn’t be out here forever. In fact, she set 30 as her LPGA retirement age.
The 18-time tour winner is a previous champion of the CME, and should she win here on Sunday, she’d collect three Hall of Fame points along with the $2 million paycheck.
How important is it to get to 27 before she retires? Ko said if she had only one point to go, she wouldn’t hang out on the tour longer than she wanted to get it.
“When I feel like it is the time for me to retire,” she said, “I will only know at that time, but I don’t want to leave the game and regret that I should have stopped then rather than trying to keep going and keep going and lose passion for golf.”
Golf Channel analyst Karen Stupples, a major champion, says Ko’s greatest asset has always been her mind. And that keeps getting better with age. Ko noted that seven years ago, she let a golf score determine her worth.
“If I had a bad day on the golf course, I didn’t feel like a good person,” said Ko. “I felt like golf was reflecting who I was, but now I think I have a better gauge of that and better perspective that this is what I do, and I’m very grateful to be able to do what I love.”
Several awards are on the line on top of the $2 million first-place prize.
The drama that surrounds the CME Group Tour Championship typically centers around much more than the mega-money awarded to the winner. In addition to the $2 million payday that’s on the line, the Rolex Player of the Year and Vare Trophy winners will also be decided this week. Both awards come with one LPGA Hall of Fame point.
Atthaya Thitikul, a two-time winner this season who also spent a brief time as world No. 1, clinched Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year honors last week. Minjee Lee already has locked up two awards – the Rolex Annika Major Award and Aon Risk Reward Challenge, which comes with a $1 million prize.
Here’s what’s yet to be decided this week in Naples, Florida:
A 19-year-old rookie holds a one-shot lead over a 16-year-old amateur at BMW in South Korea.
Atthaya Thitikul says she’s not thinking about awards, but her opening 9-under 63 set a tournament record at the BMW Ladies Championship at Oak Valley Country Club in South Korea and certainly added fuel to the Rolex Player of the Year conversation.
It stood in stark contrast to World No. 1 Jin Young Ko’s opening 80. Ko took two months off to heal a bum wrist and struggled mightily in her first round back, making a 10 on the par-5 18th after a wayward tee shot. She also recorded six bogeys.
“Golf can be like this,” Ko told South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. “Things don’t always go the way I want them to. I did the best I could. Whatever the final score is, it’s on me to accept that and to figure out where I can get better. I will try to stay positive to get ready for the remaining rounds.”
Ko, who won this tournament last year on a different course, said she didn’t want to make any excuses with her wrist, saying her goal is to wrap up the tournament playing pain-free. She’s tied for 76th in a field of 78. There is no cut.
Jin Young Ko of South Korea prepares to play her second shot out of the rough on the 18th fairway during the first round of the BMW Ladies Championship at Oak Valley Country Club on October 20, 2022 in Wonju, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
In 2017, Sung Hyun Park became the first player since Nancy Lopez (1978) to win both the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Award and Player of the Year award in the same season.
Thitikul looks to win her third title of the season this week at the BMW, which would make her the No. 1 player in the Rolex Rankings, overtaking Jin Young Ko. She could also ascend to the top if she finishes solo fourth or better and No. 3 Minjee Lee doesn’t win.
Thitikul’s bogey-free 63 included a hole-out for eagle on the par-4 13th from 102 yards.
“I had a great round today, really solid round today,” said Thitikul, “especially had eagles. First time I holed out in a competition round.”
Thitikul, 19, holds a one-stroke lead over 16-year-old amateur Minsol Kim, who shot 64, making seven birdies in a span of eight holes.
“When I was younger, I actually came as a gallery (member) to watch the BMW Ladies Championship, and I remember thinking that Sung Hyun Park was really cool,” said Kim. “So today to play side-by-side with her, think it was a real honor. Initially, I was really nervous (today) but after the first hole, I thought that it was quite fun, and so I wasn’t really feeling the pressure, and I was enjoying myself. I think that really helped me today.”
The Rolex LPGA Player of the Year race could once again turn into a doozie.
With four events left in the season, the Rolex LPGA Player of the Year race could once again turn into a doozie.
As it stands, the Rolex Annika Major Award winner Minjee Lee holds a 19-point lead over Brooke Henderson. Unlike the PGA Tour, the LPGA’s POY is based on a points system, with no player votes. A victory is worth 30 points and a second place is worth 12. A 10th-place finish is worth one point.
Points were doubled at the majors, which explains why four of the top six players in the standings are 2022 majors winners.
Jennifer Kupcho has won three times this season, but her victory with Lizette Salas at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational wasn’t eligible for POY points. She’s sixth on the list and trails Lee by 54 points.
Last season, Jin Young Ko had to win the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship to overtake Nelly Korda in the points race, and she did just that, earning an LPGA Hall of Fame point in the process. Ko won three of her last four starts to make a dramatic late-season push.
This year, both Ko and Korda have battled health issues and are T-10 and 43rd, respectively, in the POY standings.
Here’s a closer look at the top four in the running as the race winds down:
The Player of the Year race came down to the two best players in the world competing in the final group.
For some, the beauty of the LPGA Rolex Player of the Year race is that it all comes down to simple math, and Jin Young Ko knew exactly what needed to be done to claim the award for a second time: win the CME Group Tour Championship.
The season-long race came down to the final round of the year, with the two best players in the world competing side-by-side in the final group. Ko delivered a stunning knock-out punch with a career-best 63 to win the tournament and clip World No. 1 Nelly Korda by 14 points to win the POY title.
It was a statement victory to end the first chapter of what’s hopefully a long-term rivalry between the pair. Ko, who is the first South Korean player to win the POY twice, won five LPGA titles this year to Korda’s four.
“I feel a little sad to Nelly,” said Ko, “but I was a little luckier than her.”
The tour hasn’t seen a season like this—with two players going back and forth—since Ariya Jutanugarn and Lydia Ko won five and four times, respectively, in 2016.
“They have two very different games,” said Lydia Ko, who said she felt like a third wheel playing alongside the pair in Round 1 of the CME. “Even though their strengths might be similar, their games are very different.
“I think it just shows so much talent is out here. Doesn’t take one type of player to be so dominant. It can be very different.”
The first half of the year no doubt belonged to Korda, who claimed her first major title at the KPMG Women’s PGA as well as Olympic gold in Tokyo. The gold medal doesn’t count toward Player of the Year, however, as it’s not an official LPGA event. There are some who believe this should change.
Nelly Korda and Jin Young Ko at the Taiwan Swinging Skirts LPGA at Miramar Golf Country Club on Oct. 31, 2019, in New Taipei City, Taiwan. Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images
Ko played in 19 official LPGA events this season to Korda’s 17, giving herself more opportunities to collect points. Only top-10 finishes earn points, and they’re worth double at the majors. Ko led the tour with 13 top 10s this season to Korda’s 10.
Ko’s consistency in the second half of the season was downright legendary. Her streak of 14 consecutive rounds in the 60s tied a record held by Annika Sorenstam and So Yeon Ryu.
Ko won five of her last nine events in 2021 and proved to be a Sunday magician, amassing a 66.89 final-round scoring average during that stretch. In her last nine starts, 29 of 33 rounds were in the 60s, and she had more victories than rounds in the 70s. She hit 87.8 percent of greens during that time.
During the CME, Ko hit an astonishing 63 consecutive greens in regulation while battling a sore left wrist that first flared up in in the spring. She didn’t warm up hitting full shots beyond a wedge the entire week in Naples. Ko plans to get an MRI on the wrist when she returns to South Korea.
When asked if she could’ve won more had she been healthy, she said yes.
“Early of the year, maybe over in May, June, July wasn’t good,” she said. “But especially Tokyo was so bad. So I just want to go back to Tokyo right now.”
Ko is the type of player who rises to an occasion, whether it’s a birdie bet for dinner with her caddie David Brooker or a Player of the Year title. She responds to carrots. While some players might try to downplay lofty goals, Ko is the type who does the math each time she wins a trophy. It takes 27 points to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame, and Ko knows better than anyone that she’s now only 10 points away.
In four short years on the tour, Ko has 12 titles, including two majors, and only two missed cuts in 70 starts. As for what comes next, Ko said she’ll put what’s left of the $1.5 million check after taxes in the bank and settle into the offseason in South Korea.
“I want to enjoy the Christmas,” she said. “I don’t want to think about next year’s schedule yet. But I had amazing year, five times win, and I’m very happy for it.”
