The LPGA Tour has seen a lot of movement at the top of its rankings over the past year. Lydia Ko, Nelly Korda, Minjee Lee, Jin Young Ko and Atthaya Thitikul all have legitimate claims as the best golfer on the LPGA Tour.
As we gear up for the 2024 Women’s PGA Tournament, we decided to put together a list of the 20 best golfers on the tour to help get you ready for the tournament!
For the golfers ranked No. 20-11, we included some highlights. When we get to the top 10 golfers, you can check out a short bio coupled with their highlights.
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20. Andrea Lee
19. Xi Yu Lin
18. Sei Young Kim
17. Hye-Jin Choi
16. Danielle Kang
14. Charley Hull
13. Leona Maguire
12. Nasa Hataoka
11. Céline Boutier
10. Hyo Joo Kim
Hyo Joo Kim has never won a major, but she came close on three different occasions in 2022. She finished eighth in the 2022 Chevron Championship, fifth in the 2022 Women’s PGA Tournament and third in the 2022 Women’s British Open. It feels like it’s just a matter of time before Kim breaks through and wins her first major.
9. Lilia Vu
Lilia Vu’s first season on the LPGA Tour in 2019 ended with her making just one cut in nine starts. It wasn’t what she expected, and she even considered retiring and going to law school. Good thing she didn’t retire because she’s quickly become one of the best golfers on the LPGA Tour. In 2021, Vu was named the Symetra Tour Player of the Year, and she earned her way back onto the LPGA Tour. In 2023, she won the Honda LPGA Thailand tournament, which was her first victory on the LPGA Tour. She followed that up with a her first major win at the 2023 Chevron Championship. Vu’s the hottest golfer of 2023, so far, and we’re excited to see what her future holds.
8. Brooke Henderson
Brooke Henderson might be the best Canadian golfer of all time. She has 13 wins on the LPGA tour, which is the most professional tournament wins ever for any Canadian golfer. Also, she won the Canadian Press female athlete in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Henderson won two majors, including the 2022 Evian Championship last year.
7. Lexi Thompson
Lexi Thompson has been playing in LPGA Tour events for 13 years, even though she’s just 28 years old. At the age of 12, Thompson was the youngest golfer to ever qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open. Four years later, the 16-year-old Thompson became the youngest golfer to win an LPGA tournament after her victory at the 2011 Navistar LPGA Classic. Finally, she wrapped up her unforgettable teenage years with her first major tournament win at the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship when she was just 19 years old, which made her the second-youngest winner of a major on the LPGA Tour, at the time.
The last time Thompson won a tournament was in 2019, but she had some pretty impressive performances in 2022 majors. She finished in fourth place at the 2022 Chevron Championship and was the runner-up in the 2022 Women’s PGA Championship.
6. In Gee Chun
After going nearly four years without winning an event on the LPGA Tour, In Gee Chun won the 2022 Women’s PGA Championship by one stroke over fellow top 10 golfers Thompson and Minjee Lee. The victory gave Chun her third major championship. To top it off, Chun almost won another major in 2022 when she went to a sudden-death playoff with Ashleigh Buhai in the 2022 Women’s British Open. Chun ended up losing on the fourth round of the playoff, but it was still an incredible performance.
5. Jin Young Ko
If we had put together these rankings during the first half of 2022, Ko most likely would have been ranked No. 1. Ko had an incredible 2021, which led to her holding on to the No. 1 ranking in the Women’s World Golf Rankings for an impressive 39 weeks (from January 31, 2022 to October 30, 2022).
Ko won four LPGA Tour events in 2021: the Volunteers of America Classic, Cambia Portland Classic, Cognizant Founders Cup and BMW Ladies Champions. What makes her accomplishment even more impressive is that all of the wins came in the second half of 2022. Her first win of 2022 came at the Volunteers of America Classic on July 4, 2021, and her final win of the year came at the CME Group Tour Championship on November 21, 2021.
Ko reached No. 1 on the Women’s World Golf Rankings on four separate occasions. Her first No. 1 ranking came on April 8, 2019, and she held on to the ranking for 12 weeks. She worked her way back to the No. 1 ranking for a second time on July 29, 2019, and Ko stayed there for 92 weeks, which was the third-longest time anyone ever has been No. 1 the LPGA Tour. On October 25, 2021, Ko reached No. 1 for a third time, but she only stayed there for two weeks. Her fourth, and latest, time hitting the first place ranking brought her total time at No. 1 to 145 total week. This is the second longest time any golfer has been ranked No. 1 on the LPGA Tour. Lorena Ochoa holds the record at 158 weeks.
4. Atthaya Thitikul
In 2017, Thitikul became the youngest golfer ever to win a professional golf tournament at 14 years old when she won the Ladies European Thailand Championship. Later, she was named the 2021 Ladies European Tour Rookie of the Year and the 2021 Ladies European Tour Player of the Year.
After an impressive debut on the LPGA Tour, the 20-year-old Thitikul won the 2022 LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year award, and she achieved the rare honor of being ranked the No. 1 player on the LPGA Tour. During 2022, Thitikul was widely viewed as a rising star, but it’s safe to say she’s firmly entrenched as a star now.
3. Minjee Lee
If we’re just looking at results from the past two years, Minjee Lee may have the most impressive resume. Ever since Minjee won her first major in 2021, she’s been on fire. Her first major victory came at the 2021 Evian Championship, and it’s one of the most impressive major victories in recent history. Going into the final round on Sunday, Minjee was seven strokes behind the leader Jeongeun Lee. Minjee ended up shooting seven-under-par during the final round to catch up to Jeongeun and force a playoff. Minjee shot a birdie in the sudden-death playoff and won the 2021 Evian Championship.
It’s been absolutely awesome to watch Minjee’s career trajectory since that win. Her performance in majors has been incredible. She finished fifth in the 2021 Women’s British Open, second in the 2022 Women’s PGA Championship, and second in the 2022 Women’s British Open. On top of that, she won her second major at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open.
2. Nelly Korda
Nelly Korda comes from an impressive family of athletes. Her parents are retired Czech professional tennis players Petr Korda and Regina Rajchrtová. In addition to having professional athletes as her parents, Nelly’s siblings are competitors as well. Her brother, Sebastian, is currently ranked No. 26 in the world in men’s tennis, and her sister, Jessica, is currently ranked No. 28 in the world in women’s golf.
But enough about Nelly’s family. This is about her ability on the golf course, and it can be argued that she’s currently the best golfer on the LPGA Tour. In fact, as of this writing, she’s sitting at No. 1 on the Women’s World Golf Rankings.
She is the reigning champion of the Pelican Women’s Championship. Nelly actually won the tournament two years in a row, and her 2021 performance was legendary. In 2021, she went to a playoff with Sei Young Kim, Thompson, and Lydia Ko, and she ended up beating all of them to take home the title. Her 2021 Pelican Women’s Championship victory came months after she won her first major at the Women’s PGA Championship.
With a contender like Nelly, it was so difficult to choose who should be No. 1 on our ranking. However the golfer we put at No. 1’s truly incredible performance in 2022 just narrowly edged her out.
1. Lydia Ko
Despite being just 26 years old, Lydia Ko has been at the top of the golfing world for more than a decade. Back on January 29, 2012, Ko made history by becoming the youngest person to win a professional golf tour event —a record that’s since been broken by Thitikul. She won the ALPGA Tour’s Bing Lee/Samsung Women’s NSW Open. At the time of her victory, she was 14 years old. After this victory, Ko continued to work her way up the rankings. Just three years later on February 2, 2015, Ko was ranked as the No. 1 player on the Women’s World Golf Rankings. At 17 years and 9 months, Ko was the youngest golfer ever— across the PGA and LPGA — to be ranked No 1 in the world. At 18, Ko regained the first place ranking later and held on to it for an impressive 85 weeks. She relinquished the No. 1 ranking on June 11, 2017.
At the time, it was thought that she would move back to No. 1 in short order, but she ended up going through tough times on the golf course and overcame tremendous adversity to work her way back to the No. 1 ranking on November 14, 2022. The span of 5 years, 5 months and 17 days between No.1 rankings for Ko was the longest period between first place rankings ever.
Ko said, “I’m very grateful to be World No. 1 again. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be back here again. This wouldn’t have been possible without my family and team, thank you for your belief and love.”
Over the past year, Jin-young Ko, Thitikul, Korda, and Lydia Ko have all held the No. 1 ranking in the Women’s World Golf Rankings at one point, but Lydia’s grit and ability to overcome adversity has earned her the number one spot on our ranking of the best golfers on the LPGA Tour.
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