Jeeno Thitikul’s record-breaking tournament championship win came by text

NAPLES, Fla. – When the final shot of the 2025 LPGA season rang out, the player who defined the campaign raised her arms and smiled. Jeeno Thitikul had just protected him CME Group Tour Championship title and put herself in the LPGA record books in the process.

of World number 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 never felt in doubt. When Thitikul took number 10 and Annanarukarn with number 12 ahead, the lead was back to four and the only battle was between Thitikul and history. She entered the day just a point 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 bogeyed No. 13 to get to three under for the round and then chipped in a 10-footer on the final hole for good measure, finishing with an average score of 68.681 to top Sorenstam’s 2002 mark of 68.897.

“It’s such an honor,” Thitikul said of breaking Sorenstam’s record. “I mean, like I never dreamed of having that record at all. I mean it’s really amazing (the record) that I’m 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 definitely the player who rose above this LPGA season. She finished the year ranked first in wins, runner-up finishes, top 10s, strokes gained: Total percentage, birdie or better, bogeys, par-3 and par-4. She won the Player of the Year trophy and the Vare Trophy for highest scoring average.

Thitikul has been great, but the 2025 season, which culminated in a $4 million winner’s check on Sunday, had its share of ups and downs. She passed Korda as No. 1 of the World and won three times. But she also lost to Grace Kim in a playoff at Evian, had a costly bogey to lose the FM Championship and four-over on the 72nd hole in 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 determination it revealed and the message it, and the season as a whole, delivered to the 22-year-old star.

“I remember the day I came to Dallas after Kroger,” Thitikul said Sunday when asked what he would remember about 2025. “I put the ice pack in my eye because I cried so bad. That’s what I’ll remember.”

She took a photo of herself with an ice pack on her eye so that one last moment wouldn’t be lost when the pinnacle of professional golf arrives.

“I just want to remind myself that the day that you get there or the day that you — like happiness in your life, that day will definitely come. Like sadness will come. So just like anything you’ve had in your career it doesn’t define who you are and it doesn’t define who I am.”

Thitikul returned from destruction in Cincinnati a few weeks later when she made an unlikely comeback on Sunday to win the Buick LPGA Shanghai, becoming the first repeat LPGA winner of the season. A month later, she arrived at Tiburon Golf Club ready to finish the long and grueling season.

Then she came out and lit up Greg Norman’s pattern to become the second player to win the CME Group Tour championships and put an exclamation point on a season that has been more than birdies and bogeys for the world No.1.

“This year 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, the one she put on her mark on Sunday in Naples, will be remembered for a long time.

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