Nelly Korda clinched the LPGA Player of the Year award on Tuesday, Nov. 3, for the second time in three years. With three events to spare, the Nelly Korda Hall of Fame countdown is now down to a single point, according to the Associated Press.
The award came with a point of its own. As a result, Korda moves to 26 of the 27 she needs for the LPGA Hall of Fame. One more point, and she’s in.
How Nelly Korda locked up Player of the Year
The points-based award is hers because her rivals can no longer catch her mathematically. She is 28, ranked No. 1 in the world, and now owns 19 career LPGA wins.
This season she won two majors, the Chevron Championship and the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera. She also opened 2026 with a win at the Tournament of Champions.
She also leads the tour in earnings, at $6,220,214, and in scoring average at 69.38. Before the clinch, she led Haeran Ryu by 63 points, Miyu Yamashita by 83 and Jeeno Thitkul by 84, according to Golf Digest. That’s not a race. That’s a victory lap.
Athlon Sports, citing the LPGA, notes she is the first player in the past 10 years to clinch the award before the season-ending event twice.
The Korda LPGA Hall of Fame math, in plain English
The LPGA Hall of Fame runs on points, not votes. A regular win is worth one point and a major is worth two. Player of the Year and the Vare Trophy are worth one each, and so is Olympic gold. A player needs 27 points, plus at least one major, Vare Trophy or Player of the Year, per Golf Channel.
Korda’s pile includes 15 regular wins, four majors, the 2024 Player of the Year award and her Tokyo Olympic gold medal. She had 25 after the U.S. Women’s Open in June, and Tuesday’s award made it 26.
So who’s counting? Everyone, now. One more LPGA win of any size gets her to 27. The Vare Trophy for scoring average, however, is off the table, since she won’t play enough rounds to qualify.
What happens next for Korda
Her next chance comes quickly. Korda plays The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican in Belleair, Florida, the second-to-last event of the season. It’s a tournament she has won three of the last five years, per Golf Digest. If she wins, the wait ends at 27 points.
If not, the CME Group Tour Championship is her last shot this year. Meanwhile, the LPGA schedule keeps rolling, and Ruoning Yin’s latest win in Shanghai shows how deep the field is.
Remarkably, she is doing this with plenty of rust. She hasn’t played since the Solheim Cup in early September.
One small footnote for the history buffs: she wouldn’t be the youngest to get there. Inbee Park reached the requirements at 27, per AP. Korda is 28. Even so, she would be the 36th Hall of Fame qualifier, after Lydia Ko became the 35th in 2024.
Her hometown is already celebrating. Bradenton, Florida, proclaimed Nov. 2 “Nelly Korda Day” and handed her the key to the city, Golfweek reports. A Hall of Fame party may need a bigger key. For more on her dominant year, see how Korda’s historic 2026 season took shape.
