Nelly Korda Earns Rolex Player Of The Year For Second Time In 10-Year LPGA Career

Nelly Korda Wins Second Rolex Player Of The Year Award© Instagram

A year after going winless, Nelly Korda came back and made everyone remember exactly who she is. The 27-year-old Florida native has been awarded the 2026 Rolex LPGA Player of the Year, her second time claiming the honor after first winning it in 2024. She entered the season without a win since her record-breaking seven-title 2024 campaign, spent 2025 grinding through a stretch that included a T2 at the U.S. Women's Open as her best major result, and arrived at 2026 with something to prove. She proved it quickly. By the time the season reached its final events, no one else was close enough to matter.

A Season Built Around Two Majors

Korda won four times on the LPGA Tour in 2026, with two of those coming in majors. She captured the Chevron Championship at Memorial Park Golf Club wire to wire, winning by five shots and setting a string of records in the process, including becoming the first American since Meg Mallon in 2000 to claim three LPGA majors. She followed it with a victory at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, her fourth major overall. She also led the tour in greens in regulation and scoring average, earned $4.2 million in prize money through July, and held the world number one ranking in the Rolex Women's World Golf Rankings for most of the season. The five-win streak she put together in 2024 had already matched an LPGA record. This season she built a different kind of case: fewer wins, more majors, more weight.

What This Second Award Means

Korda's first Rolex Player of the Year came in 2024, when she won seven times and matched the LPGA record for consecutive wins. The 2026 version required a different kind of resilience. She had to come back from a year where nothing fell her way, reclaim a world ranking she temporarily lost, and win two majors in a sport where winning one in a season is considered extraordinary. She has now been a professional for a decade, holds three major championships, and has established herself as the most dominant player in women's golf of her generation. The award is official confirmation of what the leaderboard already made clear.