A couple of the biggest names in modern women’s golf made some money moves at the HSBC Women’s World Championship last week in Singapore. It was Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 3 Lydia Ko who emerged victorious this past Sunday, collecting her 23rd career LPGA Tour title at Sentosa Golf Club’s Tanjong Course. The 27-year-old posted a four-day total of 13-under to defeat Ayaka Furue and Jeeno Thitikul by four strokes and earn her first victory of the 2025 season and her first win on Tour since the 2024 Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G last September. Ko is now sitting at third in the season-long Race to the CME Globe, ranks second in the Rolex Player of the Year race and has risen to first on the Official Money List, but the New Zealand native made some significant moves in career money with her victory at the HSBC Women’s World Championship.
Before making her third start of the season in Singapore, Ko was ranked third on the LPGA Tour’s Career Money List, having collected $20,235,105 in official earnings since becoming a member of the organization in 2014. She was just over $58,000 behind Australian Karrie Webb, who ranked second with $20,293,617 in earnings, and was $2,348,588 behind career money leader Annika Sorenstam, who had held that position since May 6, 2001, when she surpassed the $7 million mark with a victory at the 2001 Chick-fil-A Charity Championship.
But the $360,000 winner’s check that Ko received for her victory in Singapore last week moved her ahead of Webb to second on the Career Money List with $20,595,105 earned, and Ko is now within $2 million of passing Sorenstam, trailing the Swede by just $1,988,588, a gap she could potentially close during the 2025 season. Thailand’s Thitikul also saw some changes in her career money after her T2 showing at the HSBC Women’s World Championship. The four-time LPGA Tour winner became an official member of the Tour in 2022, and after collecting $195,302 by earning her ninth straight top-10 finish on Tour since the 2024 FM Championship in Singapore, the 22-year-old became the fastest player to reach $10 million in career earnings in the history of the LPGA Tour.
Thitikul hit the $10 million mark in three years, one month and six days, now having $10,101,122 in official money to her credit after her performance in her second start of the 2025 season, and beat Lorena Ochoa’s long-standing record of four years, eight months and five days that had stood since she crossed the $10 million threshold with a victory at the 2007 ADT Championship. But maybe more impressively and a testament to how much purse money has increased over the last few years, Ochoa made her $10 million in 124 total events with 17 wins at that point in her career, while Thitikul only needed 66 tournaments and four wins to match that same benchmark.
The 2024 LPGA Tour season saw Thitikul make $6,059,309 in official money, $4 million of which she collected after picking up her fourth career title at the CME Group Tour Championship and receiving the largest first-place prize in all of women’s golf. It’s still a bit too early to tell just how many more dollars the young talent will deposit in her bank account this year, but considering she earned back-to-back top-three results in her first two tournaments of the year, Thitikul seems primed to continue shattering several more fastest-to-earn records on the LPGA Tour that haven’t been touched since Ochoa set them during her heyday in the late 2000s.
