The week before the Masters always swallows the golf news cycle whole. Even when something genuinely interesting happens elsewhere — and the LPGA is having a brilliant spring — it tends to disappear under the avalanche of Augusta speculation. That’s a shame, because the women’s game is producing exactly the kind of mix that makes a tour worth following: established stars, rising challengers, and a major championship just around the corner.
Nelly Korda’s measured start
Nelly Korda, still the most talented player in the women’s game by a margin most fans underestimate, has had what you’d describe as a deliberate start to the season. Two top-tens, no wins yet, and a short stretch off the schedule to manage a niggling neck issue. The numbers around her ball-striking suggest the form is closer to peak Nelly than the headlines might imply.
Her schedule has been built almost entirely around the Chevron Championship in late April. Watch her closely over the next three weeks. Korda has a habit of looking ordinary in February and absolutely unstoppable by May.
Mao Saigo’s quiet defence
Mao Saigo, the defending Chevron champion, is the kind of player the LPGA has thrived on for two decades — a precise, unflappable Japanese star who lets her irons do the talking. Her win in the five-woman playoff last year was one of the great major Sundays of recent memory, and she has played well enough this year to suggest she will be a serious contender to defend.
The Chevron’s move to Memorial Park in Houston changes the picture slightly. Saigo has not played the venue competitively, which closes the experience gap a little for the rest of the field. But her ball-striking suits a course built on angles and approach play, so don’t be surprised if she’s near the top of the leaderboard again.
Yamashita and the major-winners club
Miyu Yamashita’s win at last year’s AIG Women’s British Open felt like a coming-of-age moment for one of the most talented young players in the game. She has carried that confidence into 2026 and looks like a player who already knows she belongs among the elite. Her power suits the modern LPGA and her short game has gotten noticeably sharper over the winter.
Add Minjee Lee — chasing a career Grand Slam, with the Chevron and Women’s Open the two missing pieces — and you have at least three legitimate Chevron favourites with stories worth telling.
The American chasing pack
Lilia Vu, Lexi Thompson, and Rose Zhang give the American contingent its own subplot. Vu has been brilliantly consistent, Thompson is enjoying a much-needed mid-career resurgence, and Zhang is starting to look like the multi-major-winning star her amateur record suggested she’d be. None of them have won this season yet, but all three are playing well enough to suggest the breakthrough is coming.
Why it matters
The LPGA has spent the last several years rebuilding its schedule, growing its purses, and trying to bring its product closer to the men’s tour in profile. The biggest gap was never the quality of the golf — that has been excellent for decades. The gap was the storytelling. Players didn’t always have the platform, the rivalries didn’t always have the stage, and majors sometimes felt like quiet weeks rather than the centerpieces they should be.
That’s slowly changing. The Chevron’s move to Houston puts the season’s first major on a stage built for television, the field is loaded, and the rivalries are starting to feel real. Whatever happens at Augusta in two weeks, give the LPGA a few hours of your week. You’ll find the golf is excellent and the storylines are quietly some of the best on the calendar.
The Masters will get all the headlines. But the women’s game is putting on a show worth watching too.