The 2025 season changed everything we know about money in women’s golf. Thailand’s Atthaya “Jeeno” Thitikul, whose back-to-back dominance at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship shattered the glass ceiling of earning potential for female golfers, became the youngest player in LPGA history to surpass $10 million in career earnings at just 22 years old. Thitikul earned around $7.6 million in official money during her historic 2025 season, where she became the #1 women’s golfer, surpassing Nelly Korda.

That number is huge, but it is a fraction of her male counterpart, Scottie Scheffler, who won $29,228,357 last season after winning seven trophies. He repeated the same dominance, winning 6 tournaments throughout the year, including the Open Championship and the PGA Championship, and cashing in $27,659,550 in prize money in the 2025 season alone. And when we add the massive FedEx Cup bonuses, his on-course income surpassed $33 million.

And Jeeno Thitikul? Despite making 19 cuts throughout the year in 20 tournaments and winning 3 tournaments, including the Mizuho Americas Open, Buick LPGA Shanghai, and a historic $4 million winner’s check from the CME Group Tour Championship, Thitikul’s total LPGA career earnings hovered around $13.37 million, placing her 19th overall and approximately half of the money Scheffler won in 2025. But here’s the interesting part.

Thitikul showcased her earning potential in the 2024 season after breaking the LPGA single-season earnings record with $6.06 million in official prize money, surpassing Lorena Ochoa’s previous mark of $4.36 million set in 2007. The current #1 did it by winning the CME Group Tour Championship, the Dow Championship, and an additional $1 million from the Aon Risk Reward Challenge. And this season, she defended her CME Group Tour Championship beautifully, scoring 67-63-64-68 and winning $4 million. The 22-year-old also generates nearly $2 million in annual revenue with her partnerships with Callaway Golf, Nike, Rolex, Titleist, Adidas, and Hana Financial Group.

So, the men’s game still holds the financial advantage, but the gap is shrinking.

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Jeeno Thitikul is dragging women’s golf into a new commercial stratosphere

Just a year ago, reports showed the LPGA Tour was in loss and after Korda’s breakout season in 2024, the Tour brought in a record $252 million in revenue in 2024, a massive financial surge that represents a $44 million increase from the previous season. Much of that success can be credited to the excitement Thitikul generated globally.

Thitikul is doing way more than just winning tournaments and cashing checks. She is single-handedly forcing the entire women’s golf trajectory by reaching the financial milestones that legends of the game took decades longer to reach. Annika Sorenstam waited nearly the age of 30-32 in the early 2000s to get the $10 million milestone. Lorena Ochoa reached that mark at the age of 26-27 around 2008, and Juli Inkster did it at the age of 46 in 2006.

How did it happen? The LPGA Tour prize fund jumped to a record $131 million this year in its 75th anniversary. And we can see that corporate interest in the prize money explosion for the players. The Chevron Championship increased its purse by nearly $2 million, the USGA also announced a total purse of $12M for the U.S. Women’s Open, and the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship now boasts a massive $4 million first-place prize. 

So at the end, the 2025 season gave us two rulers of the golfing world. Scottie Scheffler built a fortune by suffocating his opponents with consistency. Jeeno Thitikul built her empire by breaking records not just in course and stats sheet but also in wealth.