World No. 1 Nelly Korda has clinched Rolex Player of the Year honors with three events remaining in the LPGA Tour season and moved within one point of entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
Korda, 28, earns one point as recipient of the annual award, which she also won in 2024 with three events left on the schedule.
She now is 26 points toward the 27-point threshold to become the 36th player in the hall of fame. Korda can gain points for winning an official LPGA Tour event (one) or major championship (two), capturing the Vare Trophy (one) or earning an Olympic gold medal (one).
Korda is ineligible for the Vare Trophy for low scoring average on tour because she has played only 53 thus far of the required 70 rounds this season.
She did not enter this week’s Toto Japan Classic, leaving two official tour events left in 2026: the Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican on Nov. 12-15 in Belleair, Fla., and the CME Group Tour Championship on Nov. 19-22 in Naples, Fla.
Korda has four wins this season — including major titles at Chevron and the U.S. Women’s Open — and 10 top-10 finishes. She has made 14 of 15 cuts and collected $6.2 million in official earnings.
She leads the Race the CME Globe standings with 3,713.875 points and mathematically cannot be caught by the closest competitors Miyu Yamashita of Japan (3,183.626), Jeeno Thitikul of Thailand (2,915.375), Haeran Ryu (2,745.358) of South Korea and Ruoning Yin (2,481.993) of China.
Ryu withdrew from the Maybank Championship last week in Malaysia due to an injury before the first round and did not enter this week’s Toto Japan Classic. Yamashita and Thitikul did not enter the Annika.
Korda has not competed since the Solheim Cup on Sept. 11-13 and not on tour since the FM Championship on Aug. 27-30 in Norton, Mass.
For her career, Korda has 19 victories and has $22.3 million in official earnings.
–Field Level Media
