CHANDLER, Ariz. — The LPGA Tour is in Chandler, Ariz., this week for the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass at Whirlwind Golf Club. The field is as strong as it’s ever been at a regular-season event with 19 of the top 20 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings set to tee it up, including defending champion Nelly Korda, 23-time LPGA Tour winner Lydia Ko and reigning Race to the CME Globe champion Jeeno Thitikul. Several other athletes in the field have Arizona connections, with players like Swede Linn Grant and Anna Nordqvist competing collegiately at Arizona State University and 2024 U.S. Solheim Cup team member Sarah Schmelzel hailing from Phoenix, but at a new venue with which few in the field are familiar, anything is bound to happen at the 2025 Ford Championship.

Take a look at just some of the featured groups this week at Whirlwind Golf Club using data provided by KPMG Performance Insights.

Thursday, 7:33 a.m.* | Friday, 12:28 p.m. – Yuka Saso/Linn Grant/Ayaka Furue

Yuka Saso is making her fourth start of the 2025 LPGA Tour season this week in Chandler, Ariz., and will be working to improve upon her season-best T17 result that she recorded at the Honda LPGA Thailand, which was her last start on this circuit. This is Saso’s second start in the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass, and she tied for 13th after posting scores of 70-63-69-71 in the inaugural edition of the event that was held at Seville Golf and Country Club in Gilbert, Ariz. last year. She also finished in the top 25 in the 2023 LPGA Drive On Championship that was held in the Greater Phoenix area at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club in Gold Canyon, Ariz., but Saso doesn’t have too much experience otherwise playing desert golf. She hasn’t made too much of an early impact statistically in terms of strokes gained data; however, Saso is ranked fourth in putts per green in regulation (1.67), 11th in both birdie or better percentage (25.00%) and birdie or better average per round (4.50) and 15th in birdie percentage (24.54%).

Linn Grant is incredibly familiar with the type of conditions that the field will be dealing with at Whirlwind Golf Club this week, as she played collegiate golf just down the road at Arizona State University before joining the LPGA Tour. The Swede is making her fourth start of the year at the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass, and in her three previous tournaments, she finished solo third at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, tied for 17th at the Honda LPGA Thailand and tied for 41st at the HSBC Women’s World Championship. She teed it up in the Ford Championship last year and tied for 26th at Seville Golf and Country Club, a result she will be working to improve upon in the 2025 playing of the event. Statistically, Grant is in the top 25 of a few different categories so far this season, currently ranking 10th in ball striking, T10 in both bogey avoidance (9.72%) and bogey-free rounds (2), T18 in rounds in the 60s (5), 21st in greens in regulation percentage (76.39%) and 25th in average driving distance (266.42). In terms of other desert golf experience on the LPGA Tour, Grant finished T3 at the T-Mobile Match Play presented by MGM Rewards in 2023, which is annually played at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas.

Ayaka Furue has played in every tournament available so far this year and hasn’t posted anything worse than a T25 result in the five events ahead of this week’s Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass. She recorded that T25 finish at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and then tied for 13th at the Founders Cup presented by U.S. Virgin Islands the next week. The LPGA Tour then traveled to Asia for three tournaments, and Furue again played solidly during that three-event swing, tying for 20th at the Honda LPGA Thailand, tying for second at the HSBC Women’s World Championship and finishing solo third at the Blue Bay LPGA. She carded a T13 result at the Ford Championship in 2024 when the tournament was held at Seville Golf and Country Club and has also had a lot of success in other tournaments in the desert, coming solo third at the 2023 LPGA Drive On Championship and finishing runner-up at the T-Mobile Match Play presented by MGM Rewards in both 2022 and 2023. According to data provided by KPMG Performance Insights, Furue has the third-best scoring average of anyone on Tour since the beginning of the 2024 season, averaging 69.98 strokes per round in that span, and is additionally ranked first in greens in regulation (77.5%), third in strokes gained total (+1.87) and eighth in strokes gained putting (+0.85) in that same timeframe. Through the beginning of the season, she is currently second in driving accuracy (84.29%), second in sub-par rounds (15), third in birdies (78) and third in rounds in the 60s (10), all stats that indicate Furue will be a threat to the field at the Ford Championship.

Thursday, 7:44 a.m.* | Friday, 12:39 p.m. – Lydia Ko/Ruoning Yin/Charley Hull

Lydia Ko has played in three tournaments so far this year, finishing solo sixth at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, tying for 48th at the Founders Cup presented by U.S. Virgin Islands and then collecting her 23rd career title at the HSBC Women’s World Championship. Her win in Singapore made 2025 Ko’s second straight season earning at least one victory, as she won three times in 2024 at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews and the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G, and since the beginning of 2012, her 23 titles are the most of any player in that span, according to KPMG Performance Insights. She is making her second start in the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass at Whirlwind Golf Club and will be trying to better the T13 result she posted at Seville Golf and Country Club in the first playing of the tournament last season. The 27-year-old has had plenty of other success with desert golf in the past, earning five top-10 finishes at the Founders Cup when the event was held at Wildfire Golf Club in Phoenix in 2014 (T2), 2015 (T6), 2016 (2), 2017 (T8) and 2019 (T8). Statistically, Ko has yet to really stand out in any specific metric, but considering her wealth of experience competing in the desert, the New Zealand native is definitely a player to keep an eye on at Whirlwind Golf Club.

Ruoning Yin has had a quiet start to the year, only managing to card one top-25 result in her first three tournaments of the season, a tie for 21st that came at the HSBC Women’s World Championship, something she will be looking to rectify this week at the Ford Championship. This is her second time playing in this event, having earned a T26 finish at Seville Golf and Country Club in Gilbert, Ariz. last season, and Yin’s experience with desert golf on the LPGA Tour is pretty much limited to that event and the 2023 LPGA Drive On Championship at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club, where the now 22-year-old tied for 16th after carding rounds of 68-67-70-69. Even though she’s been a bit slow early in 2025, the Rolex Rankings No. 4 has established herself as one of the LPGA Tour’s strongest athletes since joining the organization in 2022, earning five victories, one of which was a major championship that came in 2023 at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Baltusrol Golf Club. According to KPMG Performance Insights, cumulatively over the last three years, Yin is third in strokes gained ball striking (+1.75), third in strokes gained total (+1.81), third in scoring average (70.08) and sixth in greens in regulation (74.6%), putting the young talent in the conversation to win pretty much every week on the LPGA Tour. Her statistics this year have yet to match her performances in 2023 and 2024 but look for Yin to catch fire quickly as the LPGA Tour schedule begins to pick up.

The Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass marks Charley Hull’s third tournament of the 2025 season, and even though LPGA fans haven’t seen much competitive golf out of the Englishwoman thus far, she fared decently well in her first two starts of the year, tying for 19th in the limited-field Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and then tying for fourth at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore. Hull is making her second start in the Ford Championship after having to withdraw from this tournament last season, but she does have some positive desert golf experiences to lean on as she pursues her third career LPGA Tour title this week at Whirlwind Golf Club, having tied for seventh at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Superstition Mountain in 2023. Even though she has yet to play much golf this season, Hull is still ranked highly in several statistical categories on the LPGA Tour. Looking at data provided by KPMG Performance Insights, the two-time winner is fourth in strokes gained driving (+0.86), eighth in strokes gained tee to green (+1.66), 12th in strokes gained approach (+1.03) and 14th in strokes gained total (+1.86). She also ranks sixth in greens hit from rough percentage (72.50%), sixth in bogey avoidance (9.03%) and ninth in greens in regulation (79.17%).

Thursday, 12:39 p.m. | Friday, 7:44 a.m.* – Nelly Korda/Jeeno Thitikul/Patty Tavatanakit

Nelly Korda is making her first official title defense of the year this week at the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass, having won the first playing of this event in 2024 by two strokes over Hira Naveed at Seville Golf and Country Club. This is just her third start of the season, as the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1 didn’t play in the Tour’s three tournaments in Asia, but she posted two good results in her first two events of the year, finishing solo second at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and then tying for seventh at the Founders Cup presented by U.S. Virgin Islands, momentum Korda will hope to rediscover this week at Whirlwind Golf Club. Even with her early limited schedule, Korda, who won seven titles throughout the 2024 season, tends to always be a threat to win every time she tees it up, something evidenced by her play since last year’s AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews. According to KPMG Performance Insights, in that span, the Florida native has posted six seventh-place or better results, won her 15th LPGA Tour title, had a scoring average of 68.3 strokes and gained 2.9 shots total on her competitors. And despite not having a lot to go on statistically this early in the season, Korda is still first in strokes gained driving (+1.21), tied for first in strokes gained total (+2.92), sixth in strokes gained putting (+1.41) and tied for 13th strokes gained tee to green (+1.46).

Jeeno Thitikul had earned nine straight top-10 finishes since the 2024 FM Championship before her streak ended with a T12 performance at the Blue Bay LPGA in the People’s Republic of China, and the Thailand native comes to this week’s Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass hoping to post another top-10 result at Whirlwind Golf Club. The 22-year-old has only teed it up in three events so far in 2025, coming solo third at the Honda LPGA Thailand and tying for third at the HSBC Women’s World Championship along with her top-15 showing in early March. This is her first start in the Ford Championship, as Thitikul didn’t compete in last year’s tournament at Seville Golf and Country Club, and her knowledge of playing in these types of conditions on the LPGA Tour is limited to the one start she made at the T-Mobile Match Play presented by MGM Rewards in 2022 and her T16 performance at the LPGA Drive On Championship at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club in 2023. But Thitikul has had success with this style of golf on the Ladies European Tour, winning the PIF Saudi Ladies International earlier this year on that circuit by four strokes over Somi Lee. According to KPMG Performance Insights, Thitikul has the lowest scoring average on Tour since last year’s Mizuho Americas Open (69.1), and she also leads the organization in strokes gained total (+2.62) and strokes gained putting (+1.43) in that span. And in just her first three events this season, the young talent is third in strokes gained total (+2.85), sixth in strokes gained approach (+1.35) and 10th in strokes gained tee to green (+1.60), metrics that should point to her having even more early-season success this week at the Ford Championship.

Patty Tavatanakit has gotten off to a steady start so far this season on the LPGA Tour, tying for 20th in her first tournament of the year at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and then tying for fourth in her title defense at the Honda LPGA Thailand, consistency she will be working to keep rolling at Whirlwind Golf Club. Like her groupmate Thitikul, the Thailand native didn’t play the Ford Championship in 2024, but she was at Superstition Mountain in 2023 and finished in a tie for 39th that year at the LPGA Drive On Championship. Tavatanakit has a tie for fifth at the 2021 T-Mobile Match Play presented by MGM Rewards on her resume when it comes to her other LPGA Tour showings in the desert, and again like Thitikul, she won the 2024 edition of the PIF Saudi Ladies International on the LET, what was her first worldwide victory since she captured her first major title at the 2021 Chevron Championship at Mission Hills Country Club, located in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Statistically, Tavatanakit is currently leading the Tour in strokes gained around the green (+0.91) and is also ranked 11th in both strokes gained tee to green (+1.59) and strokes gained off the tee (+0.67), according to KPMG Performance Insights. She is also seventh in birdie or better percentage (27.08%), seventh in birdie or better average per round (4.88) and 10th in greens hit from the fairway (86.75%).

*Off No. 10

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

Featured Groups: 2025 Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass

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