2026 is now upon us, with the LPGA Tour season getting kicked off in about a month. What are some of the burning questions heading into the new year? Here are some of them:
Will Jeeno Thitikul win a major? – This has to be the number one question out there at this point. Thitikul has accomplished seemingly everything in golf other than a major title. She’s won Player of the Year, she’s won the Race to the CME Globe twice, she set the single-season scoring record in 2025 and has seven LPGA Tour wins at only the age of 22. The major is the only thing left to accomplish. She plays well in them too, with eight top-10 finishes in the last four seasons, including a near win at Evian in 2025.
Will Nelly Korda bounce back? – It still doesn’t make much sense that Nelly Korda didn’t win in 2025. She ran into some bad luck and timely errors, but there were encouraging signs including her most overall consistency of her career with no missed cuts and top-10s in almost half her starts. Korda is still clearly the biggest star on the Tour and plans to play a bit of a reduced schedule in 2026. Two wins seems like a reasonable goal for the world No. 2.
What will the Solheim Cup teams look like? – There are a lot of questions within this question itself. The United States doesn’t have a whole lot of open slots from the winning 2024 team, while Europe will likely take this chance to get a bit younger. It figures that room will have to be made for Angel Yin and Yealimi Noh on the United States side, and Lottie Woad and Ingrid Lindblad on Europe, but beyond that there are plenty of players in the mix.
Will Lottie Woad continue her ascension as a superstar figure? – Outside of Rose Zhang, you probably have to go back to the beginning of Lydia Ko’s career to find a player who got more hype as quickly as Lottie Woad did in 2025. Woad came out of her final college season at Florida State swinging, winning on the LET as an amateur, nearly winning her first major championship, earning her LPGA Tour card and winning her first event as a professional. The season slowed a bit for Woad but she is still undeniably one of the most prominent figures on Tour. Can she take advantage of her name recognition and enter the territory of players like Korda, Brooke Henderson, Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson?
Can Rose Zhang and Lilia Vu rebound from their injury riddled seasons? – A year changes a whole lot. In 2024, Zhang and Vu were representing the United States in the Olympics for the first time as top-10 players in the Rolex Rankings. After injuries and inconsistent play, they are now the 10th and 11th ranked players from the USA. Neither is in the top 45 anymore and Zhang is all the way down at No. 62. Zhang and Vu are both still very strong when healthy, the question is, can they stay at 100% or near it all season and will it make some Solheim Cup decisions very difficult for Angela Stanford?
Will Jin Young Ko make a comeback? – Coming into 2025, it seemed we had seen the end of Minjee Lee as one of the best players in the world, but she stepped up and had a terrific season. Now, it sort of feels like the great Jin Young Ko’s best years are behind her. Ko hasn’t won since May 2023, going over two full seasons without a title. She has run into injuries, and had some high moments in major championships, but this is a big departure from the player who won 15 times between 2017 and 2023.
