PORTHCAWL, Wales — The AIG Women’s Open marks the final major of the 2025 LPGA Tour season, and fans are in for a links golf treat this week at Royal Porthcawl Golf Club as the world’s best work to successfully tackle this seaside venue in Wales. The field is as star-studded as they come, with the entirety of the top 25 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings set to compete, a slate of athletes that most notably includes world No. 1 Nelly Korda, defending champion Lydia Ko, England’s Charley Hull and 2025 rookie Lottie Woad, the latter of whom just won in her pro debut on the LPGA Tour at last week’s ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open.

Take a look at just some of the featured groups this week at the AIG Women’s Open using data provided by KPMG Performance Insights.

Thursday, 8:31 a.m./Friday, 1:16 p.m. – Jeeno Thitikul/Minjee Lee/Charley Hull

Jeeno Thitikul is continuing her pursuit of a maiden major victory this week at the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl, having come quite close to shedding the “best player who hasn’t won a major” title at The Amundi Evian Championship. The Thailand native found herself in a playoff with Grace Kim at Evian Resort Golf Club, one the Australian ultimately won after pitching in for an improbable birdie following a watery second shot on the first extra hole and then rolling in a midrange eagle putt on the second extra hole. Her runner-up performance is Thitikul’s career-best finish in a major tournament and marked the second time that she had finished in the top five of a major this season, as she tied for fourth at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco in June. Along with those two performances, the 22-year-old has picked up her fifth career LPGA Tour title at the Mizuho Americas Open and collected five additional top-10 results in her 13 starts before this week in Wales. This is Thitikul’s eighth time competing in the AIG Women’s Open, and in her seven previous appearances, she has only managed to find the top 20 twice, doing so in 2022 at Muirfield, where she tied for seventh, and then also doing so last season at the Old Course at St Andrews, where Thitikul tied for 17th. According to data provided by KPMG Performance Insights, Thitikul currently leads the LPGA Tour in scoring average (69.24) and strokes gained total (+2.83), also ranking second in both birdie or better average (4.68) and bogey avoidance (11.7 percent). The Rolex Rankings No. 2 is additionally fourth in strokes gained tee to green (+1.70), fourth in strokes gained approach (+1.09) and seventh in strokes gained putting (+0.98).

Minjee Lee is one of two athletes who are chasing the Career Grand Slam this week at the AIG Women’s Open alongside In Gee Chun. The Australian picked up her third different major title in June at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Fields Ranch East, posting a four-day total of 4-under in some of the most difficult conditions the Tour has seen this season to win by three strokes over Auston Kim and Chanettee Wannasaen. Now, having also collected major titles at The Amundi Evian Championship and U.S. Women’s Open, Lee would become the eighth woman to finish the Career Grand Slam with an AIG Women’s Open victory, joining Karrie Webb as just the second Aussie ever to achieve the feat. This is the 11-time LPGA Tour winner’s 12th start in this major championship, and she has racked up five top-10 finishes, the most recent of which was a tie for fourth that Lee recorded at Muirfield in 2022. According to KPMG Performance Insights, those five top 10s Lee has posted at the AIG Women’s Open are the most of any player since 2015. The 29-year-old has teed it up in 14 tournaments before traveling to Wales this week, and in addition to her win in Texas, she has earned four other top-10 results, most recently tying for third at The Amundi Evian Championship alongside Lottie Woad. She currently ranks inside the top 20 on Tour in strokes gained total (2, +2.54), strokes gained putting (4, +1.21), strokes gained off the tee (12, +0.68) and strokes gained tee to green (20, +1.05), also according to KPMG Performance Insights data. Lee is also leading the Tour in Official Money in 2025 with $3,158,315 earned.

UK fan favorite Charley Hull is back in action in Wales after tying for 21st last week at the ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open, what was her first start since withdrawing from The Amundi Evian Championship a few weeks ago. This is the Englishwoman’s 14th start in the AIG Women’s Open, and in her 13 previous appearances in this championship, she has earned five top-20 finishes, most notably coming in second to Lilia Vu in 2023 at Walton Heath, not too far from her home in England. Hull is playing in her 12th tournament of the 2025 season, and she has racked up four top 15s in her 11 events prior to this week, most notably carding back-to-back T12s at the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills and at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Fields Ranch East. According to KPMG Performance Insights data, Hull is the only player this season to be ranked inside the top 50 of the four main strokes gained categories on the LPGA Tour. She currently sits at 15th in strokes gained off the tee, 49th in strokes gained approach, 48th in strokes gained around the green and 42nd in strokes gained putting. She is also 12th in greens hit from the rough percentage (59.73 percent) and 16th in bogey avoidance (13.73 percent). Hull remains in search of her third career LPGA Tour victory, having not won since the 2022 Ascendant LPGA benefiting Volunteers of America.

Thursday, 12:54 p.m./Friday, 8:09 a.m. – Lydia Ko/Lilia Vu/Lottie Woad

Defending champion Lydia Ko is looking to win back-to-back AIG Women’s Opens this week at Royal Porthcawl, having picked up her third career major title at the 2024 edition of this championship that was hosted at the Old Course at St Andrews. Ko won by two strokes over a foursome of players at the Home of Golf, a group that included Rolex Rankings No. 1 Nelly Korda, Republic of Korea native Jiyai Shin, 2023 AIG Women’s Open winner Lilia Vu and Chinese major champion Ruoning Yin. The victory came not long after Ko automatically qualified for the LPGA Hall of Fame, having earned the 27th and final point she needed to do so by taking gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics at Le Golf National. She is teeing it up in her 14th AIG Women’s Open this week in Wales, and along with her victory, Ko has earned four other top-15 results in this major tournament, the best of which is a tie for third that she recorded in 2015 at Turnberry. This is her 12th event of the 2025 season, and in her 11 starts ahead of this week, Ko has earned one victory at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore and collected four additional top 15s, one of which was a tie for 12th that she posted at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Fields Ranch East. Looking at Ko’s season-long statistics, she currently ranks inside the top 20 in strokes gained around the green (3, +0.54), strokes gained total (11, +1.62) and strokes gained putting (16, +0.80), according to KPMG Performance Insights data. She is also fourth in scrambling, ninth in sand saves (56.36 percent) and 10th in one-putt average per round (7.18), a combination of metrics that will likely be critical to success when shots miss their targets in the firm, windy, damp conditions that are expected at Royal Porthcawl.

The AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath was one of four victories that Epson Tour graduate Lilia Vu racked up during the 2023 season, a year that saw the California native earn Rolex Player of the Year honors for the first time in her career. It was the second major championship title she collected in 2023, as Vu had won The Chevron Championship in April, and it remains the former Rolex Rankings No. 1’s most recent major victory on the LPGA Tour. The 27-year-old is making her fourth start in this event at Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, and along with her win, Vu finished in a tie for 41st in her tournament debut in 2022 and then tied for second last year at St Andrews alongside Nelly Korda, Jiyai Shin and Ruoning Yin after finishing at 5-under overall. This is Vu’s 11th start of the year, and after showing early signs of steadiness by finishing solo second at the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass, the five-time LPGA Tour winner has struggled, missing the cut in her last five LPGA Tour starts. But Vu is hopeful to turn that around this week in Wales at a tournament that’s historically brought out the best in her, as, according to KPMG Performance Insights, in the last five years, Vu has the best scoring average of any player in that span at the AIG Women’s Open (70.42).

Lottie Woad is the name on everyone’s lips at the 2025 AIG Women’s Open, as the young talent just won by three shots in her professional debut on the LPGA Tour at last week’s ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open and is the favorite in the field at Royal Porthcawl. It’s been an incredible run of golf in recent weeks for the Englishwoman, who picked up her first victory in a pro tournament on the Ladies European Tour at the KPMG Women’s Irish Open and then nearly won the next week at The Amundi Evian Championship, ultimately finishing in a tie for third, a performance that saw the 21-year-old qualify for LPGA Tour membership via the LPGA Elite Amateur Pathway. Her win in Ayrshire, Scotland saw Woad become the eighth Rolex First-Time Winner of the 2025 season, and according to KPMG Performance Insights, she is the first athlete since Dame Laura Davies in 1994 to win both the Irish and Scottish Opens in the same season. Additionally, in her last three starts in pro tournaments, Woad is a combined 55-under and boasts a scoring average of 67.3, picking up 4.83 strokes total per round across her 12 days of play in that span, looking at KPMG Performance Insights data. She has also been minimizing mistakes quite well, only making bogey 7.4 percent of the time during any given round, something Woad will need to continue doing at what is poised to be a difficult test of golf in Wales.

Thursday, 1:16 p.m./Friday, 8:31 a.m. – Ariya Jutanugarn/Nelly Korda/Angel Yin

Ariya Jutanugarn won the AIG Women’s Open back in 2016 when the tournament was contested at Woburn and will be making her 12th start in this major when she tees it up on Thursday at Royal Porthcawl. In addition to that victory, the Thailand native has collected four other T11 or better results in her 11 previous appearances, most recently finishing sixth in this tournament last season at the Old Course at St Andrews. This is her 13th event of the year, and Jutanugarn has had a pretty strong season up to this point, earning six top-10 results, the best and most notable of which the former Rolex Rankings No. 1 posted at The Chevron Championship, where she tied for second after falling in a five-person playoff to Mao Saigo in The Woodlands, Texas. Statistically, Jutanugarn ranks highly in several categories on the LPGA Tour in 2025 and is currently tied for fifth in putts per green in regulation average (1.74) and sixth in sand saves (58 percent), also ranking inside the top 20 in strokes gained approach (11, +0.85), strokes gained total (18, +1.39) and strokes gained tee to green (19, +1.13), according to KPMG Performance Insights. Jutanugarn is sitting at 14th in the season-long Race to the CME Globe, on track to have her best finish in the points race since the 2021 season if she continues to trend upward. She’s also 18th in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings.

World No. 1 Nelly Korda came incredibly close to winning the AIG Women’s Open last year at St Andrews, ultimately tying for second at the Old Course after finishing two shots behind Lydia Ko, her career-best finish in this major. She will be looking to better that performance this week at Royal Porthcawl in her ninth start in this major championship. Along with her T2 showing in 2024, Korda has earned four other top 15s at the AIG Women’s Open – tying for ninth in 2019, tying for 14th in 2020, tying for 13th in 2021 and tying for 11th in 2023. This is her 13th event of the season, and thus far, Korda has made the cut in every single one of her starts, racking up five top-10 finishes, two of which are runners-up that she tallied at the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions (2) and the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills (T2). According to KPMG Performance Insights, since 2019, Korda has collected eight top-five results in major championships, the most of any LPGA Tour athlete in that same span, a consistency that has much to do with her sustained excellence over the past couple of years. Looking at Korda’s season-long statistics, the recently turned 27-year-old leads the Tour in strokes gained off the tee (+1.01) and ranks third in strokes gained total (+2.31), fifth in strokes gained tee to green (+1.65), 15th in strokes gained approach (+0.70) and 18th in strokes gained putting (+0.74), according to KPMG Performance Insights. Korda is also first in birdie percentage (26.49 percent), first in par-5 scoring average, second in scoring average (69.61) and third in birdies (205).

The AIG Women’s Open marks Angel Yin’s 13th start of the 2025 LPGA Tour season, and she will once again be looking for her second victory of the year when she tees it up at Royal Porthcawl. Yin picked up her second career win early in the season at the Honda LPGA Thailand, and since then has earned six T13 or better results, four of which have come in this year’s the majors, as Yin came in 13th at The Chevron Championship, tied for ninth at the U.S. Women’s Open, tied for sixth at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and tied for fifth at The Amundi Evian Championship. KPMG Performance Insights data says that Yin’s putting has been the main reason for that kind of sustained success in the game’s biggest events. She leads the Tour in strokes gained putting per round in major championships over the last three seasons, picking up 1.66 shots on her competitors with her flat stick. In terms of her season-long metrics, the California native is leading the LPGA in strokes gained putting (+1.46) and ranks sixth in strokes gained total (+1.88). She additionally is sitting at third in scoring average (69.75), third in birdie percentage (23.33 percent), third in both birdie or better average (4.38) and birdie or better percentage (24.31 percent) and is tied for fifth in putts per green in regulation (1.74), all statistics that say there’s plenty of more success still to come this season for the two-time LPGA Tour champion.

All times local. For a full list of tee times, please click here. For more information on how to watch the AIG Women’s Open, please click here.

Featured Groups: 2025 AIG Women’s Open

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