NAPLES, Fla. – As the final putt of the 2025 LPGA season fell, the player who defined the campaign raised her arms and smiled. Jeeno Thitikul had just defended her CME Group Tour Championship title and placed himself in the LPGA record books in the process.
The world number 1 entered the final round at Tiburon Golf Club with a six-shot lead over Nelly Korda and Pajaree Anannarukarn. Thitikul’s victory on Sunday felt inevitable. Even when Anannarukarn came within two points on the turn, there was never any doubt. When Thitikul birdied No. 10 and Annanarukarn bogeyed No. 12, the lead was back to four and the only battle was between Thitikul and history. She entered the day just decimal places behind Annika Sorenstam for the best single-season scoring average in LPGA history, needing to shoot a three-under 69 or better in the final round to surpass a mark that has stood for 23 years.
She birdied No. 13 to reach three under in the round, then threw a 10-footer on the final hole for good measure, finishing with a scoring average of 68.681, surpassing Sorenstam’s 2002 score of 68.897.
“It’s such an honor,” Thitikul said of breaking Sorenstam’s record. “I mean, like I never dream of having that record. I mean, like that’s really amazing.” [record] that I’m going to get.”
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The win was Thitikul’s third of the season and seventh of her career. While the wins don’t tell a story of dominance, Thitikul was undoubtedly the player who hovered above this LPGA season. She finished the year ranked first in wins, runners-up, top 10s, strokes gained: total, Birdie or Better Percentage, Bogey Avoidance, Par 3 scores and Par 4 scores. She won the Player of the Year trophy and the Vare trophy for highest scoring average.
Thitikul was great, but the 2025 season, which culminated with a $4 million winner’s check on Sunday, had its ups and downs. She overtook Korda as world number 1 and won three times. But she also lost to Grace Kim in a playoff at the Evian, had a costly late bogey to lose the FM Championship and four-putted the 72nd hole of the Kroger Queen City Championship to lose to Charley Hull.
It was that loss in Cincinnati that defined Thitikul’s season – in the pain it brought, the determination it revealed and the message it, and the season in general, conveyed to the 22-year-old star.
“I remember the day I came to Dallas after Kroger,” Thitikul said Sunday when asked what she would remember about 2025. “I put the ice pack in my eyes because I was crying so much. That’s what I’ll remember.”
She took a photo of herself with the ice pack over her eyes so that a low point won’t be lost when the highs of professional golf arrive.
“I want to remind myself that the day you get there or the day you – like the happiness in your life, this day will definitely come. Just like the sadness will come. So just like what you’ve had in your career doesn’t define who you are and doesn’t define like who I am.”
Thitikul bounced back from the devastation in Cincinnati a few weeks later when she made an unlikely comeback on Sunday to win the Buick LPGA Shanghai, becoming the LPGA’s first repeat winner of the season. A month later, she arrived at Tiburon Golf Club, ready to put the long, grueling season through.
She then torched Greg Norman’s design to become the second player to win back-to-back CME Group Tour championships and put an exclamation point on a season that was about more than birdies and bogeys for the world No. 1.
“This year has taught me to be more humble, to be honest,” Thitikul said before the tournament. “You know, like you’re here and one day you’re definitely not going to be here anymore. [It won’t] will definitely live on forever in my career.”
Nothing lasts forever. But Jeeno Thitikul’s 2025, which she underlined in Naples on Sunday, will be remembered for some time to come.
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