The 2025 Buick LPGA Shanghai got off to a rocky start after photos of heat-burned greens surfaced on Wednesday. But the week ends on Sunday with two of the Tour’s best players – Minjee Lee and world number 1 Jeeno Thitikul – looking to finish low in the final round at Qizhong Garden Golf Club to prevent history from repeating itself.
Entering the week, the LPGA had seen 26 different champions across 25 events so far this season. Twenty-six unique winners in a season is a record set in 1995 before being equaled in 2018, 2022 and this year. That figure is an impressive sign of parity for the LPGA, but also leaves it without a clear Player of the Year candidate or dominant star to draw attention. Nelly Korda, who won seven times in 2024, has yet to enter the winner’s circle in 2025.
That brings us to this week in Shanghai, where Japan’s Minami Katsu enters Sunday’s final round with a two-shot lead over Thitikul and Lee.
Katsu blew at Qizhong Garden Golf Club, firing an 11-under-par 61 to jump into the lead. Katsu, still seeking her first LPGA victory, backed up that 61 with a 68 on Saturday, but watched as Thitikul and Lee appeared in her rearview mirror. Thitikul fired a third-round 66, while Lee carded a 65 to move within two of Katsu with 18 holes to play.
“They are clearly two of the best players,” Katsu said of Thitikul and Lee, with whom she will be paired on Sunday. “I’m really looking forward to playing with them. I’m sure I can learn a lot from them. At the same time, trying to maintain my game – focus on my game and really looking forward to playing with them tomorrow.”
Katsu leads Buick LPGA Shanghai by two shots
Thitikul and Lee have both already triumphed this season.
The world No. 1 won the Mizuho Americas Open in May and recently knocked on the door of No. 2 victory in 2025. Thitikul has recorded consecutive second-place finishes in her last two starts at the FM Championship and the Kroger Queen City Championship. Last month, Thitikul made a fourth putt on the 72nd hole of the Kroger Queen City Championship and presented the trophy to Charley Hull. Those near misses did not scar Thitikul, but only strengthened her belief in herself.
“If you told me that this year I can come second in every tournament for the entire season, in my 30s, I will accept that,” Thitikul said of her close calls. “What I’m learning is that the five wins I had on the LPGA are also in the past, so I don’t carry it on my shoulder. I don’t carry it in my head.”
After a bogey-free 66 on Saturday, Thitikul is once again in position to become the first multiple winner on the LPGA this season.
“Every time I play a match on Sunday, it’s really exciting and definitely nervous,” Thitkul said. “Like 18 holes, 18 chances for everyone. Not just me. So I’m doing my best.
“I don’t think I’m doing anything special,” Thitikul said later. “I think it’s just golf, where part of the day you play really well and another part of the day you’re not so fancy. I think yesterday I didn’t really have good iron shots, so I think I have better iron shots today, which gives me more chances than yesterday.”
The third part of Sunday’s equation is Lee, who won her third career major this year at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Fields Ranch East in Frisco, Texas. The Australian started the third round five strokes behind and finished in a shared eighth place. She first opened with a sloppy bogey on the par-5, but then got red-hot during a 10-hole stretch in which she made eight birdies, including five in a row from Nos. 7-11.
In June, Lee survived sweltering temperatures at Fields Ranch East to pull away from Thitikul this weekend to win her third major.
Sunday in Shanghai will be a similar story, with Katsu’s two-shot lead serving as an added wrinkle.
It will be Lee and Thitikul in sweltering temperatures expected to reach the mid-90s. They will be two of the LPGA’s best attempts to end a historic streak of ties. And there’s Minami Katsu, who is looking to become the 27th unique winner on the LPGA this season and enter the winner’s circle for the first time in her career.
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