Important upcoming LPGA season? 5 things will define it

The LPGA is hunting for its heyday.

With new commissioner Craig Kessler at the helm, the LPGA is entering a new era in which it plans to raise the brand and increase visibility in an effort to compete in the ongoing attention wars that have consumed the professional sports.

Kessler has only been on the job for half a year, but he’s already made several key changes that indicate things will be different at the LPGA going forward. He arranged a new television broadcast deal to ensure that all tournaments could be seen live on the Golf Channel or CNBC. He brought in Golf Saudi as a new tournament sponsor with a $4 million purse. He moved the Chevron Championship to Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston and is beginning to restructure the program to increase its value.

Kessler has big ideas and, so far, has shown the ability and willingness to do things that his predecessors couldn’t or wouldn’t. The 2026 season is the biggest for the LPGA and the Kessler era. It can serve as a platform to launch the huge growth that players and managers see, leading to the success that women’s golf has been waiting for.

The most important season begins at the end of January, with five important players and five questions shaping the season that could be the beginning of the slow build-up so far that Kessler and the LPGA see.

Craig Kessler’s next move

We’ll start with Kessler.

As noted, he has hit the ground running since taking office, and it is clear that his inauguration was just the beginning.

At the CME Group Tour in November, Kessler again explained his LPGA putting technique to capture the balls he wants. That starts with a television broadcast deal, which is already in development, but also needs to raise the profile of the LPGA’s biggest stars, both on and off the ropes.

Enter: WTGL, a women’s modeling league announced this week by the LPGA and TMRW Sports, which owns TGL.

Kessler said he first heard from the players that there might be a women’s TGL before he officially took it on. Mike McCarley of TMRW Sports said that while the current focus is on moving WTGL, there is interest in LPGA players sharing the field with PGA Tour stars in a crossover event. As the LPGA looks to reach a wider audience, WTGL provides a route to a younger and more diverse audience.

“I think it means a lot,” Lexi Thompson told ESPN’s Matt Barrie about the creation of WTGL. “It just brings a whole different fan base to the game of golf. I think that’s what’s needed. Faster golf, all those images, coming to the screen. I think the fans just get more involved and see the personality of the guys, and the women now. I think it’s just amazing for the game of golf as a whole.”

From a new television deal to WTGL, Kessler has taken on some significant changes as she looks to elevate women’s golf to where it should be. His next move will be as important as his first.

Nelly Korda’s bounce

A year after winning seven times, Korda did not qualify in 2025 despite statistics suggesting his game was at the same level.

“It’s definitely been an interesting year I would say,” said Korda at the CME Group Tour Championship. “There’s been some good; there’s been some very good flashes; there’s been some flashes I don’t know what happened. I can just say that’s the nature of golf. If we come off last year, it’s going to be hard to back that up.”

Korda had a chance to win the US Women’s Open but was unable to get past Maja Stark who was crowned champion on Sunday at Erin Hills. She will drop to No. 2 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings and miss the final three majors of the year. And yet, without a goose egg in the win column for 2025, Korda, the LPGA’s biggest star, didn’t consider it a failure. It was simply the ebb and flow of a game that was won and lost on the leading edge.

“It’s a really good line,” Korda said. “Sometimes it comes to the point where there is only one shot, it’s like taking out your lips and you don’t get the momentum.

“I don’t really think I’m a worse golfer or a better golfer. I’d say maybe last year a few things went my way. That’s just how golf is. I’ve never had a sad party and I’m never going to be like, oh, why on this divot or why did I get that bad jump. Sometimes you find out how good a game is. It breaks and sometimes you don’t.”

But as the LPGA heads into an important season on the back of a draw-dominated group, how Korda bounces back — and potentially re-emerges as a major force in the women’s game — will be crucial. The depth of talent in the LPGA is evident. You don’t get a season with 29 different winners and only two repeat champions without it. But as the LPGA seeks to build on its success, having one or two stars who can reach a wider audience is at least necessary, if not mandatory.

“As a guest and even from the opinions of the fans, yes, it’s good to have someone like Nelly who dominated last year,” said Hall of Famer Lydia Ko. “It attracts a lot of attention, especially for him – in the case of Nelly, who is an American player. That attracts a lot of different attention. In the case that even if you don’t play golf, you know who Tiger Woods is. Having that kind of figure, yes, it is very important, but at the same time, just the level of play among the player ranked 1 in CME, I think it does not measure far from the talent in CME.

“It’s a double-edged sword in that you want to go deep with talent because you just want to see the whole game grow, but at the same time, if I was going to market someone, it’s much easier to market one person than 30 people.”

How will Nelly Korda return in 2026? That could be the defining question of next season.

Encore by Jeeno Thitikul

While Korda struggled to enter a winless 2025, Thitilkul dominated the season in every way that mattered except one.

The 22-year-old has three wins, three top finishes and 14 top-10 finishes. She won the Player of the Year Award and the Vare Trophy, breaking Annika Sorenstam’s record for the lowest scoring average in LPGA history along the way.

Thitikul did everything in 2025, including eclipsing Korda as World No. 1, without winning his first medal. She entered the weekend at the KPMG Women’s PGA as one of the top contenders but watched as Minjee Lee passed her over the weekend in Frisco. Thitikul had the Evian Championship on Sunday before Grace Kim stole it from her in the playoffs.

In a year defined by equality, Thitikul had great power. He has a chance to back it up in 2026, move on to the majors and become one of the faces of the LPGA.

Charley Hull’s potential success

Charley Hull is one of the needles of the LPGA. Crowds flock to him when he is in the field. His popularity has increased over the past few seasons and his rivals are Kordas.

As noted above, the LPGA needs stars and needs them to win on the course and get them out there. Kessler praised Hull for being one of the LPGA’s top stars who are committed to getting out of golf.

“I’m just myself,” Hull told GOLF. “I think it’s nice that they invited me [to the UK state dinner]. I had a great year, and it was fun. I think it’s a good thing that women’s golf has people who approve of it and, yes, that’s just me. “

But Hull, 29, is still waiting for his big breakthrough moment. He has eight career wins, including three on the LPGA, but has yet to capture a major tournament. Hull has four runners-up in the majors, including the 2025 AIG Women’s Open, where her Sunday payout reached, and Miyu Yamashita walked away with the trophy.

Hull is a star. He is an amazing long-hitting talent and has the kind of personality the LPGA needs to nurture further. But can his results begin to match or surpass his explosive popularity? The answer will be important in this crucial upcoming season.

The emergence of a new (or old) star.

The 2025 season saw freshman star Lottie Woad have a summer to remember.

Woad won the KPMG Women’s Irish Open, came out shortly after winning the Evian tournament and then became the champion and promptly won the Scottish Open.

As the LPGA looks for new stars to build, Woad will appear to be the frontrunner.

So is Rose Zhang, who has scaled back her schedule as she works to complete her communications degree at Stanford. A schedule change and a neck injury led to a “struggle bus” season for Zhang. But he played well in the FM Championship at TPC Boston and plans to graduate in March, which should get him back into a full playing schedule.

Zhang, a two-time winner on the LPGA Tour, won his first start as a professional and quickly became one of the most popular players on the Tour after becoming a rising star. Splitting time between professional golf and his studies has been tough on his game, but Zhang hopefully should re-emerge at the start of the big season in 2026 as his ranking career ends.