LPGA’s critical upcoming season? 5 things will define it

The LPGA is hunting for its breakthrough moment.

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

Kessler has only been on the job for half of a year, but he has already made several significant changes that signal things will be different for the LPGA moving forward. He orchestrated a seismic new television broadcast deal to ensure every tournament round could be seen live on Golf Channel or CNBC. He brought in Golf Saudi as a sponsor for a new tournament with a $4 million purse. He moved the Chevron Championship to Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston and is starting to rework the schedule to maximize its value.

Kessler has big visions and, so far, has demonstrated the ability and willingness to do things his predecessors either couldn’t or wouldn’t. The 2026 season is a massive one for the LPGA and the Kessler era. It can serve as a launching pad for the massive growth that players and executives envision, leading to the breakthrough women’s golf has been waiting for.

A pivotal season begins at the end of January, with five key players and five questions shaping a season that can be the start of a slow build to the moment Kessler and the LPGA envision.

Craig Kessler’s next move

We’ll start with Kessler.

As noted, he has hit the ground running since taking over, and it’s clear that his opening flurry of moves was just the start.

At the CME Group Tour Championship in November, Kessler further outlined his approach to positioning the LPGA to capture the eyeballs it seeks. That starts with the television broadcast deal, which has already been improved, but also requires raising the profile of the LPGA’s biggest stars, both inside and outside of the ropes.

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

Kessler said he started hearing from players about the possibility of a women’s TGL before he even officially took over. TMRW Sports’ Mike McCarley said that while the focus right now is on getting WTGL off the ground, there is interest in having LPGA players share the stage with PGA Tour stars in a crossover event. As the LPGA looks to reach a wider audience, the WTGL offers an avenue into a younger and more diverse audience.

“I think it means so much,” Lexi Thompson told ESPN’s Matt Barrie of the creation of the WTGL. “It just brings a whole different fan base to the game of golf. I think that’s what is needed. It’s quicker golf, all those shots, hitting into a screen. I think fans just really get involved more and see the personalities of the guys, and now the women. I think it’s just amazing for the game of golf in general.”

From a new television deal to the WTGL, Kessler has already taken several notable swings as he looks to elevate women’s golf to the space it should occupy. His next moves will be just as important as his first.

Nelly Korda’s bounceback

A year after winning seven times, Korda went winless in 2025 despite stats suggesting her game was mostly at the same level.

“It’s definitely been an interesting year I would say,” Korda said at the CME Group Tour Championship. “There has been good; there has been flashes of really good; there has been flashes of I don’t know what just happened. I would say overall that’s just kind of golf. Coming off last year, it’s kind of always going to be difficult to back that up.”

Korda had a chance to win the U.S. Women’s Open but was unable to run down eventual champion Maja Stark on Sunday at Erin Hills. She would drop to No. 2 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings and fail to contend in any of the year’s final three majors. And yet, despite a goose egg in the 2025 win column, Korda, the LPGA’s biggest star, didn’t view it as a failure. It was merely the ebb and flow of a sport won and lost on the finest of margins.

“It’s honestly a fine line,” Korda said. “It comes down to sometimes one shot. It’s like one putt lips out and you don’t get your momentum. It’s just such a fine line when it comes to golf.

“I don’t necessarily think that I’m a worse golfer or a better golfer. I would say that maybe last year few more things were going my way. That’s just kind of how golf is. I’ve never going to have a pity party and never going to be like, oh, why is it in this divot or why did I get that bad bounce. It’s just sports. That’s just how they are. Sometimes you get a wave of good bounces and good breaks and sometimes you don’t.”

But as the LPGA enters a pivotal season after one dominated by parity, how Korda bounces back — and potentially re-emerges as the dominant force in the women’s game — will be vital. The depth of talent on the LPGA is evident. You don’t get a season with 29 unique winners and only two repeat champions without it. But as the LPGA seeks to build toward its breakthrough, having one or two dominant stars who can reach a wider audience is at the very least needed, if not imperative.

“As a tour and even from a fan perspective, yes, it’s great to have somebody like Nelly that was so dominant last year,” Hall of Famer Lydia Ko said. “Catches a lot of attention, especially with her — in Nelly’s case, being an American player. That catches a lot of different attention. In the case of even if you don’t play golf, you know who Tiger Woods is. Like having that kind of a figure is, yes, very important, but at the same time, just a level of play between the No. 1-ranked player on the CME rankings to 100, I think the talent is not that far different.

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

How will Nelly Korda bounce back in 2026? That might be the defining question of the season ahead.

Jeeno Thitikul’s encore

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

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

Thitikul did everything in 2025, including eclipsing Korda as World No. 1, except for win her first major. She entered the weekend at the KPMG Women’s PGA as one of the main contenders but watched as Minjee Lee cruised past her on the weekend in Frisco. Thitikul had the Evian Championship in her grasp on Sunday before Grace Kim stole it from her in a playoff.

In a year that became defined by parity, Thitikul was the dominant force. She has a chance to back it up in 2026, break through on a major stage and become one of the faces of the LPGA.

Charley Hull’s potential breakthrough

Charley Hull is one of the LPGA’s needles. Crowds flock to her when she’s in the field. Her popularity has built over the past few seasons and rivals Kordas.

As noted above, the LPGA needs stars and needs them to win on the course and put themselves out there off it. Kessler commended Hull for being one of the LPGA’s top stars who is willing to branch out outside of golf.

“I’m just being myself,” Hull told GOLF. “I think it’s great that they invited me [to the UK state dinner]. I’ve had a pretty good year, and it was nice. I do think it is a good thing for the women’s game of golf to have people acknowledging it and, yeah, I’m just being myself.”

But the 29-year-old Hull is still waiting for her big breakthrough moment. She has eight career wins, including three on the LPGA, but has yet to capture a major championship. Hull has four career runner-ups in majors, including the 2025 AIG Women’s Open, where her Sunday charge came up short, and Miyu Yamashita left with the trophy.

Hull’s a star. She’s a tremendous talent who hits it long and has the type of personality the LPGA needs to amplify more. But can her results start to match or exceed her exploding popularity? The answer will be important to the vital season ahead.

The emergence of new (or old) star

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

Woad won the KPMG Women’s Irish Open, came up just short of winning the Evian Championship and then turned pro and immediately won the Scottish Open.

As the LPGA looks for new stars to build up, Woad would seem to be a top candidate.

So too would Rose Zhang, who has pared down her schedule as she works to finish her communications degree at Stanford. The schedule change and a neck injury led to a season on “the struggle bus” for Zhang. But she played well at the FM Championship at TPC Boston and plans to finish her degree in March, which should set her up to return to a full-time playing schedule.

Zhang, a two-time winner on the LPGA Tour, won her very first start as a professional and quickly became one of the Tour’s most popular players after a star amateur career. Splitting time between professional golf and her studies has been difficult for her game, but Zhang should hopefully re-emerge around the start of the 2026 major season as her balancing act comes to an end.