LPGA’s Richest Season Ever Set to Crown a Record-Breaker

The LPGA Tour’s richest season yet is set to conclude this week with someone finally breaking Lorena Ochoa’s 17-year-old record for prize money won in a single season.

Whoever wins this week’s CME Group Tour Championship will surpass the $4,364,994 that Ochoa earned in 2007 when she won eight tournaments, including the Women’s British Open. 

That’s because this week’s first-place prize is a record $4 million (double last year’s payout), and all 60 golfers in the field have already won enough money this season that the winner’s check would vault them over Ochoa. Linnea Strom’s $540,968 is the lowest prize money total coming in.

Ochoa’s record wasn’t closely contested until 2022, when Lydia Ko fell $591 short, winning $4,364,403 on tour that year. On Sunday, Nelly Korda added to her landmark year by becoming just the third golfer to win more than $4 million in one season, following her seventh victory of 2024 at The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican (after a highly watched practice round with Caitlin Clark), which brought her total to $4,164,430.

Even if Korda doesn’t win this week, she can surpass Ochoa’s mark with a top-five finish, and could still end up with the single-season record, depending on who wins the tournament. Second place pays out $1 million, third $550,000, fourth $350,000, and fifth $260,000. Eight other golfers have already won more than $2 million this season, and 21 others over $1 million.

Overall, the LPGA Tour’s total prize money in 2024 amounts to a record $125.95 million, up from $101.4 million in 2023.

“It’s a really big topic,” No. 7–ranked Jeeno Thitikul said in an interview with Front Office Sports. Thitikul won this season’s Aon Risk Reward Challenge, which earned her a $1 million bonus, in addition to the $2.1 million she earned in tournament prize money. “It’s really nice for us to have [a lot of] support because we’re trying to make the tour bigger,” Thitikul said.

The purse for the Tour Championship, which tees off Thursday at Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Fla., is $11 million (a $4 million increase from 2023), which is second only to the $12 million handed out at the U.S. Women’s Open this year.