THE WOODLANDS, Texas — The 2025 LPGA Tour major season gets underway this week at The Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas. The brightest stars in the women’s game have come to The Club at Carlton Woods hoping to write a new chapter of Tour history at one of golf’s biggest events, and the field is stacked top-to-bottom with some of the most notable names in the sport at large, a list that includes defending champion Nelly Korda, 23-time LPGA Tour winner Lydia Ko and Canadian major champion Brooke Henderson. All eight of this season’s tournament winners will also compete, two of whom are Korean major champions A Lim Kim and Hyo Joo Kim, and one of whom is Epson Tour graduate Ingrid Lindblad, and they are joined by 24 of the top 25 athletes in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings.

Take a look at just some of the featured groups to watch this week at The Chevron Championship using data provided by KPMG Performance Insights.

Thursday, 8:21 a.m./Friday, 1:21 p.m. – Jin Young Ko/Yuka Saso/Brooke Henderson

Jin Young Ko is the only member of her first- and second-round grouping that has won The Chevron Championship, claiming her first career major title at this event in 2019 and getting to make the famous jump into Poppie’s Pond at Mission Hills Country Club. Ko won her second major later that same season at The Amundi Evian Championship, but she hasn’t been able to pick up a third major victory in the years since that win in France, something the Republic of Korea native will be working to rectify this week at The Club at Carlton Woods. This is her eighth tournament of the 2025 LPGA Tour season, and in her seven events ahead of this week, Ko has racked up three top-10 finishes – tying for fourth at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, coming in second at the Founders Cup presented by U.S. Virgin Islands and then tying for seventh last week at the JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro. She has one additional top-20 result on her resume this year, a tie for 18th that the 29-year-old recorded at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore. Statistically, Ko is ranked inside the top 30 of four major strokes gained categories, according to KPMG Performance Insights. She is currently 16th in strokes gained approach (+0.79), 17th in strokes gained total (+1.46) and 30th in both strokes gained putting (+0.64) and strokes gained tee to green (+0.75). Ko is additionally tied for second in bogey-free rounds (6), ninth in birdies (96), tied for 11th in par-4 scoring average (3.92) and 19th in both birdie or better percentage (25 percent) and birdie or better average per round (4.50).

Yuka Saso was a major champion during the 2024 LPGA Tour season, winning her second U.S. Women’s Open title at Lancaster Country Club last June, and will be working hard to add to her major tally this week in Texas. She has teed it up in four previous editions of The Chevron Championship, earning a career-best T17 result in 2022 when the event was last played at Mission Hills Country Club. In the two editions of this tournament that have been held at The Club at Carlton Woods, the Japan native missed the cut in 2023 and tied for 30th in 2024, two performances that she will be looking to improve upon in 2025 at this venue. This is her sixth event of the year thus far, and there hasn’t been much to write home about in terms of her recent results, as Saso has only managed to card one top-20 finish, a tie for 17th that came at the Honda LPGA Thailand in February. In terms of strokes gained data provided by KPMG Performance Insights, Saso is only ranked inside the top 25 in one metric – strokes gained putting, in which she is currently 22nd (+0.73). But she is still fourth on the LPGA Tour in putts per green in regulation (1.68), 17th in birdie percentage (25 percent) and 18th in both birdie or better percentage (25.40 percent) and birdie or better average per round (4.57), stats that could point to her having success this week at The Chevron Championship.

Brooke Henderson is competing in her 11th Chevron Championship this week at The Club at Carlton Woods, and while she has yet to hoist a trophy at this major championship, the Canadian has had some incredibly solid performances in this event over the years. She never finished worse than T48 when the tournament was still contested at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif., earning a whopping six top-20 results in those eight editions, including a tie for second that came in 2020. The past two years in The Woodlands, Texas, the 27-year-old has tied for 23rd in 2023 and tied for third in 2024, the latter of which happened after she carded an 8-under 64 in the third round. This week marks her eighth start of the 2025 season, and thus far, the 13-time LPGA Tour winner has collected three top-25 results, the best of which is a tie for ninth that she recorded at the T-Mobile Match Play presented by MGM Rewards in Las Vegas. Statistically, Henderson hasn’t made too much of an impact on paper in terms of strokes gained data, but she is currently ranked seventh in driving accuracy, hitting the fairway 78.21 percent of the time off the tee.

Thursday, 8:32 a.m./Friday, 1:32 p.m.* – Nelly Korda/Lilia Vu/Patty Tavatanakit

Defending champion Nelly Korda is looking to once again make history at The Chevron Championship. Since the event’s inception in 1972, only two players have been successful in their title defenses at this event – Sandra Post, who won it back-to-back in 1978 and 1979, and Annika Sorenstam, who picked up the title in 2001 and 2002 to earn two of her 10 total major championship victories. Korda, who is currently the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1, made plenty of history last year at The Club at Carlton Woods, winning for a fifth straight time in The Woodlands, Texas, a victory that saw her tie Nancy Lopez and Sorenstam for most consecutive wins in consecutive starts. Her second career major title was just one of seven total victories that Korda collected throughout the 2024 LPGA Tour season, a year-long performance that saw her earn both the Rolex ANNIKA Major Award and Rolex Player of the Year honors. Korda has yet to win so far in 2025, but the 26-year-old has some solid results on her resume this season, not finishing worse than T28 in her five previous starts ahead of this week and earning two top-10 results at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, where she came in second, and the Founders Cup presented by U.S. Virgin Islands, where she tied for seventh. According to data provided by KPMG Performance Insights, since The Chevron Championship has moved to The Club at Carlton Woods, Korda has led the field in strokes gained total (+3.79) and birdies or better (37) and additionally ranks second in greens in regulation (74.3 percent), third in strokes gained off the tee (+1.07) and ninth in strokes gained putting (+1.33). And even though she has yet to find victory lane on Tour this year, the Florida native actually has a lower scoring average coming into The Chevron Championship this year than she did in 2024, currently averaging 68.13 strokes per round, but Korda is gaining 0.43 strokes less in 2025 than she was in her five starts before the year’s first major last season. Still, she leads the Tour this season in strokes gained off the tee (+1.16), is third in strokes gained total (+2.31), ranks 13th in strokes gained tee to green (+1.48) and is 14th in strokes gained putting (+0.90).

Lilia Vu won her first career major title in 2023 at The Chevron Championship and had the honor of making the first leap into the pond left of the 18th green at The Club at Carlton Woods as the tournament moved from its previous home at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif. to The Woodlands, Texas that year. It was one of four victories that the Epson Tour graduate collected that season, as she also won the Honda LPGA Thailand, the AIG Women’s Open and The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican, four performances that helped her earn both the Rolex Player of the Year award and the Rolex ANNIKA Major Award. After dealing with injuries over the last couple of years, Vu has only managed to find the winner’s circle once since the 2023 season, picking up her fifth career LPGA Tour title at the 2024 Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give. But she has come close to earning a sixth victory already in 2025, finishing solo second at the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass after falling in a playoff to Hyo Joo Kim. She has only made four starts so far this season, and outside of that runner-up showing in Arizona, the Rolex Rankings No. 4 has been a bit quiet as of late; however, major championships are often where Vu shines the brightest. According to KPMG Performance Insights data, in her last eight major starts, she has earned four top-two finishes, the most of any player in that span, boasts a 71.14 scoring average per round and is gaining strokes in 82.1 percent of her rounds played in those eight tournaments. Much of her success in the biggest events in all of women’s golf can be attributed to her putting ability, and she once again ranks in the top 10 of strokes gained putting on the LPGA Tour this season, currently sitting at 10th in that metric and picking up 1.06 strokes on the field on the greens. She also ranks eighth in driving accuracy through her four tournaments this year, finding the fairway 78.06 percent of the time with her tee shots.

Patty Tavatanakit won the 2021 edition of The Chevron Championship that was held at Mission Hills Country Club after beating now LPGA Hall of Famer Lydia Ko by two strokes in California. She finished T4 in her title defense the next year, what is her second-best result in this major championship, but since the tournament moved to The Woodlands, Texas, the Thailand native has struggled to find success at The Club at Carlton Woods, tying for 41st in 2023 and then missing the cut here in 2024. This is her fifth event of the 2025 LPGA Tour season, and in her four previous events, Tavatanakit has played some pretty solid golf, earning three top-20 results at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions (T20), the Honda LPGA Thailand (T4) and the T-Mobile Match Play presented by MGM Rewards (T17) and not finishing any worse than the tie for 38th she recorded at the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass. Looking at KPMG Performance Insights data, the 25-year-old’s on-course play is matching up with her statistics on paper, as Tavatanakit currently ranks fourth in strokes gained around the green (+0.77), fifth in strokes gained off the tee (+0.78) and 10th in strokes gained tee to green (+1.58). She is also 26th in strokes gained total (+1.16) and is additionally ranked seventh in ball striking (27), 11th in birdie percentage (26.39 percent) and 13th in scoring average per round (69.33).

Thursday, 1:10 p.m.*/Friday, 8:21 a.m. – Ayaka Furue/Lydia Ko/Amy Yang

Ayaka Furue became a first-time major champion last year at The Amundi Evian Championship in Evian-les-Bains, France, winning her second career LPGA Tour title at Evian Resort Golf Club by one stroke over Australian Stephanie Kyriacou. She’s looking to add a third victory to her LPGA Tour resume in The Woodlands, Texas in her fourth appearance at The Chevron Championship, an event in which she has never finished any better than a tie for 44th. The 24-year-old is making her ninth start of the 2025 season at The Club at Carlton Woods, and in her eight tournaments ahead of this week, she hasn’t finished any worse than T35, earning three top-15 results, including a tie for second at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore and a solo third that she recorded the very next week in the People’s Republic of China at the Blue Bay LPGA. So far this season, Furue only ranks inside the top 25 of two strokes gained categories on the LPGA Tour, currently sitting at 16th in strokes gained total (+1.65) and 22nd in strokes gained putting (+0.73). But she is ranked first in rounds in the 60s (16), sub-par rounds (22) and birdies (120) and additionally ranks third in driving accuracy (83.42 percent), ninth in greens hit from the rough percentage (72.31 percent) and tied for 11th in par-4 scoring (3.92). She’d be the first Japanese player since herself at last year’s Amundi Evian Championship to win a major title and would be the second Japanese player to have won multiple majors since 2010, alongside Yuka Saso, who won her first U.S. Women’s Open as a Filipino in 2021.

Lydia Ko is a past champion of The Chevron Championship, taking home this major title in 2016 when the tournament was still being held in Rancho Mirage, Calif., at Mission Hills Country Club. That win was Ko’s second major victory, and she finally picked up her third major win last season at the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews, what was part of a historic year for the New Zealand native, who gained entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame after claiming the gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. This is her 13th appearance in this major championship, and along with her victory, Ko has collected five other top-20 finishes, two of which were top-10 results that came at the 2020 Chevron Championship, where she finished alone in sixth, and at the 2021 playing of the tournament, in which she was runner-up. This is her sixth start of the 2025 LPGA Tour season, and in her five previous events, the former Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1 won the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore and has racked up two other top-six finishes at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, where the past winner finished alone in sixth, and the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass, where Ko tied for sixth. Ko is ranked in the top 20 of several statistical categories on Tour this year, looking at data provided by KPMG Performance Insights. She is currently sitting at first in par-5 scoring average (4.43), eighth in strokes gained total (+2.04), ninth in strokes gained around the green (+0.63), 16th in strokes gained tee to green (+1.15) and 18th in strokes gained putting (+0.75), additionally ranking first in sand save percentage (81.25 percent), fifth in birdie to bogey ratio (2.88), T5 in bogey-free rounds (4), seventh in bogey avoidance (8.68 percent) and eighth in scoring average (68.94).

Amy Yang is teeing it up in her 16th Chevron Championship this week in The Woodlands, Texas, and in her 15 prior starts in this major championship, the Republic of Korea native has racked up six top-15 results, the best of which is a tie for fourth that she recorded twice in both 2012 at Mission Hills Country Club and in 2023 at The Club at Carlton Woods. This is her sixth tournament of the year, and thus far, the 35-year-old hasn’t missed a single cut, earning a season-best result of T11 the Honda LPGA Thailand and recording two additional top-25 finishes at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore (T21) and the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions (T22). The major champion has yet to make too much of an impact on paper thus far this season, but Yang is tied for 12th in bogey-free rounds (3).

*Off No. 10

All times local. For a full list of tee times, please click here.

Featured Groups: 2025 Chevron Championship

Related Articles