Jeeno Thitikul broke an LPGA record on Sunday but her win was about something more
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NAPLES, Fla. — When the final putt of the 2025 LPGA season dropped, the player who defined the campaign lifted her arms and smiled. Jeeno Thitikul had just defended her CME Group Tour Championship title and put herself in the LPGA record books in the process.
The World No. 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 got within two at the turn, it was never felt in doubt. When Thitikul birdied No. 10 and Annanarukarn bogeyed No. 12 up ahead, the lead was back to four, and the only battle was between Thitikul and history. She entered the day just decimal points 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 eclipse a mark that has stood for 23 years.
She birdied No. 13 to get to three under on the round and then poured in a 10-footer on the final hole for good measure, finishing with a scoring average of 68.681 to top Sorenstam’s 2002 mark of 68.897.
“It just such an honor,” Thitikul said of breaking Sorenstam’s record. “I mean, like I never ever dream of having that record at all. I mean, like that’s really amazing [record] that I am going to have.”
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 levitated above this LPGA season. She finished the year ranked first in wins, runner-ups, top 10s, Strokes Gained: Total, Birdie or Better Percentage, Bogey Avoidance, Par 3 scoring and Par 4 scoring. She won the Player of the Year Trophy and the Vare Trophy for top scoring average.
Thitikul has been great, but the 2025 season, which culminated with a $4 million winner’s check on Sunday, had its share of ups and downs. She overtook Korda as World No. 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 on the 72nd hole at 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 resolve it revealed and the message it, and the season at large, delivered to the 22-year-old star.
“I remember the day that I came to Dallas after the Kroger,” Thitikul said Sunday when asked what she’d remember about 2025. “I have the ice pack put in my eyes because I cried so bad. That’s what I’ll remember.”
She took a picture of herself with the icepack on her eyes so that a rock-bottom moment won’t get lost when the highs of professional golf arrive.
“I just want to remind myself that the day that you reach there or the day that you — like the happiness in your life, this day will come definitely. Like the sadness will come. So just kind of like whatever you 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 pulled off an improbable Sunday comeback to win the Buick LPGA Shanghai, becoming the LPGA’s first repeat winner of the season. One month later, she arrived at Tiburon Golf Club ready for the long, grueling season to be over.
Then, she went out and torched the Greg Norman design to become the second player to win back-to-back CME Group Tour Championships and put an exclamation point on a season that has been about more than birdies and bogeys for the World No. 1.
“This year had taught me to be more humble, to be honest,” Thitikul said before the tournament. “You know, like you’re there and definitely one day you’re not going to be. [It won’t] last forever in my career for sure.”
Nothing lasts forever. But Jeeno Thitikul’s 2025, one she punctuated on Sunday in Naples, will be remembered for quite some time.
