It was a unique and controversial week on the LPGA Tour at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the week:
- It would be unfair to say Nelly Korda is “back.” She was second in scoring average on Tour in 2025 and finished top 10 in nearly half the tournaments she played. That being said, this week felt different than 2025. Korda’s putting looked much improved and her shot making, particularly around the greens, was more to her high standards. She did all of this with a relatively off week driving the ball for her. When she was hitting fairways on Saturday, you saw what can happen when she puts it all together, and it was wildly impressive.
- This season really felt like a reset for the LPGA Tour with commissioner Craig Kessler now at the helm for a full year, but the first major test didn’t go well. From the outside, the LPGA seemed caught by surprise by the weather, despite the forecast calling for extreme cold for the entire week. Players, spectators, volunteers and media were kind of in limbo for awhile as the tournament kept getting delayed one hour. There still isn’t a lot of clarity on why the professionals didn’t play while the celebrities did. Being on site, it wasn’t a surprise to me that the final round wasn’t competed, but the process and decision making still raises a lot of questions.
- It will be a week of “what if?” for both Amy Yang and Youmin Hwang, probably the two players most impacted by the weather delays. Hwang was in decent position when she got to 17, but had the wind blow one of her putts off the green in something straight out of your worst British Open nightmare. That putt is what led to the wind delay on Saturday, but it was too late for Hwang who couldn’t replay her shot, and ended with a triple bogey. She finished eight strokes back. Yang was probably the only player who had a realistic chance at catching Korda in a hypothetical fourth round, sitting three strokes back. Korda was six shots clear of anyone else, but especially in the conditions, a three-stroke lead didn’t feel out of reach.
- Really good week of battling back from Brooke Henderson, who struggled in round one, but got better with each day, peaking with a 66 in the third round. Henderson got a top three finish and, like Korda, looked a lot more like the player we are used to seeing. Now the questions begin of how she will perform without her sister Brittany on the bag, as she takes a long break because of her pregnancy.
- A lot of questions surrounded Rose Zhang and Lilia Vu this year, with injuries and poor play for the two superstars being the story of 2025. Both performed well. Zhang got a top-10 finish and Vu ended up on the top half of the leaderboard despite a poor third round. I would be encouraged by both performances.
- This is a classic week that showcases the role of luck in golf. There’s an old saying that “you’d rather be lucky than good.” Nelly Korda was both in Orlando, and often times that combination of luck and skill leads to wins. Lydia Ko, Lottie Woad, Amy Yang, Nasa Hataoka, Youmin Hwang and A Lim Kim really got the absolute worst of the conditions Saturday, taking many of them out of striking distance. That’s also what happens in golf, bad breaks happen. Korda was almost definitely going to have the lead regardless though, thanks to a round that won’t be easy to top on the LPGA Tour this year. Korda also still had to play through difficult conditions, with the temperatures really dropping and wind picking up while she was on the front nine Saturday. 17 was also difficult then, with her tee shot coming up well short in the wind, and she also had to back off her putt a few times because of the wind potentially moving her ball.
