This historic LPGA money record is about to be broken. The question is by whom?
Scott Halleran
Some time before season’s end—potentially as early as this weekend—Annika Sorenstam will relinquish a title she’s held since 2001: all-time leading money winner on the LPGA Tour.
During the course of her 15-year career as a full-time LPGA player, Sorenstam won 72 titles and earned $22,583,693 in official prize money. Yet with a two-way tie for second place or better finish at this week’s Lotte Championship, Lydia Ko can pass that number. The 29-year-old New Zealander trails Sorenstam in career earnings by $223,228. The overall prize money payout in Hawaii this week is $3 million, with the winner taking home $450,000, runner-up earning $282,976 and third-place claiming $205,279 with a standard cut of 65 players.
If Ko does it this weekend, she will have eclipsed Sorenstam’s career mark while playing in 30 fewer events (308 to 278) and winning only 23 titles.
While Ko is in hot pursuit of Sorenstam, she isn’t the only one. Sitting third on the current all-time money list is Nelly Korda. The No. 1 player in the world needs to earn only $253,921 more in prize money to jump Sorenstam.
Korda is not in this week’s field, nor is she competing in any of the four events the LPGA is holding overseas during its fall Asian swing (Ko, meanwhile, is only listed with the LPGA Tour as being in the field at the Maybank Championship, where she finished second in 2025).
Korda’s next start is expected to come in November at, ironically, The Annika Driven by Gainbridge in Florida. It’s a tournament Korda has won three times and made $1.1 million in five appearances.
Lydia Ko and Nelly Korda, playing together here in the 2025 KPMG Women's PGA Championship, are both on the cusp of passing Annika Sorenstam on the LPGA's career money list.
Stacy Revere
Both Ko and Korda have benefitted from a healthy increase in the overall prize money payouts on the LPGA Tour over the last several years. Korda has reached her spot on the LPGA money list while playing in just 177 events so far.
It was May 6, 2001 when Sorenstam took over the top spot on the money list, passing Betsy King, with a victory at the Chick-fil-A Charity Championship. At the time, it was Sorenstam’s 28th career win in 152 LPGA starts, and it came during a record-breaking season in which Sorenstam won eight titles.
The transition that is taking place on the LPGA Tour is similar to what happened on the PGA Tour in August. That’s when Scottie Scheffler jumped Tiger Woods on the men’s all-time list, winning the Tour Championship and its $10 million first-place payday to reach $130 million in career earnings. Tiger, at just shy of $121 million, had been No. 1 on the PGA Tour money list since February 2000.