The LPGA Tour has never seen the kind of major season like what has unfolded over the last four months.
With one final major left on the calendar, it feels like the whole of 2026 has been building towards a final showdown between the game’s top player and an up-and-coming star who has had a hearty summertime breakthrough.
For the first time in history, multiple players have won multiple majors in a single season, with Nelly Korda — far and away the No.1-ranked player in women’s golf — winning the Chevron Championship and the U.S. Women’s Open to start the year, and Haeran Ryu winning the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and the Amundi Evian Championship.
Now the LPGA Tour’s best returns to Royal Lytham & St Annes for the 50th playing of the AIG Women’s Open — and even more history on the line.
Korda has won two other tournaments alongside her major trophies and had one of the most impressive starts to a season in LPGA Tour history. Through her first six events of 2026, Korda’s worst finish was a tie for second. She had only one finish outside of the top-8 on the leaderboard through July.
Korda missed her first cut of the season at the Evian Championship, however, and just barely found the weekend at last week’s ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open. Korda’s best finish at the Women’s Open came in 2024, when she was tied for second.
She finished tied for 42nd in 2018, the last time Royal Lytham hosted the major and Korda knows there is a unique challenge ahead on the Lytham links. But, she said, she’s ready for what’s to come.
“That’s always the goal, right, to contend in major championships. My attitude this week is control what you can control,” Korda said. “Sometimes with links golf you can kind of get pretty agitated with the bounces that you get. You hit a good shot, get a bad bounce, end up in a pot bunker, have to pitch out unfortunately and save par. So, this week my attitude is going to be control what you can control.”
If she was to win this week, she would win her fourth different major — and not only would she complete the career grand slam, but she would also earn enough points to lock up a spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame.
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There hasn’t necessarily been a Korda-Ryu battle yet this season as Korda finished tied for eighth at the Women’s PGA Championship after she struggled in the final round. But both Korda and Ryu are looking to become the first golfer since Inbee Park in 2013 to win three majors in a season.
Ryu had had a steady climb to the top having won once on the LPGA Tour in each of the last three years. She had three top-10s in majors in 2024 and has long been known as one of the very best ball strikers on the LPGA Tour. She is second in both strokes gained: off the tee and tee to green, while sitting first in strokes gained: approach.
With a laugh, Ryu said Tuesday she is “still a little uncomfortable” doing interviews as a two-time major champion but is looking forward to trying to continue her major momentum again this week.
She finished tied for 23rd at the Women’s Open last year.
“I have a lot of confidence,” Ryu said. “I got a lot of confidence after two major (championships), and then but this is another golf course and another golf (tournament)… but I’m so happy to come back here.”
In both of Ryu’s major wins this summer, Canada’s Brooke Henderson had a front-row seat. Henderson was in the final group Sunday at both the Women’s PGA Championship and the Evian Championship where she fell to Ryu in a playoff. She finished T3 in the former. This year marks the first time Henderson has notched two major top-10 finishes since 2022.
Henderson finished tied for 11th the last time the Women’s Open was hosted at Royal Lytham but has struggled with links golf over the last while — she hasn’t made the cut at the Women’s Open since 2022 where she finished tied for seventh.
Alas, Henderson (who will be one of two Canadians in the field alongside teen Anna Huang) has had a completely renewed outlook on golf — and life — this summer. Her sister Brittany gave birth to a healthy baby girl in June and, just a few weeks ago, Henderson announced she and baseball player Ricky Castro were engaged. Castro is a pitcher in the Minnesota Twins minor-league system.
The 14-time LPGA Tour winner’s return to form has come at a perfect time in the season.
“I’m really grateful for how things have been off the course for me recently,” Henderson told reporters in Edmonton last week when she was in town as part of the CPKC Women’s Open media day, where Henderson will defend her title from 2025. “To have the run that I’ve had in the last month is really exciting.
“I feel like my ball striking is in a much better place again. It kind of feels how it used to feel when I was younger. Mentally, off the course a lot of great things are happening, which I think has relieved a lot of pressure on the course.”
Ah, yes — the course. Royal Lytham is as tough as it comes in terms of the Women’s Open rotation, boasting nearly 200 bunkers. But the prize at the end of the week is a significant one, with players competing for a US$10 million purse. This year marks the sixth consecutive increase in the prize pool and is triple what it was a decade ago.
Miyu Yamashita is the defending champion, winning in 2025 at Royal Porthcawl. England’s own Georgia Hall captured the Women’s Open title the last time Royal Lytham played host — becoming just the third British winner of the championship in its major history. The 22-year-old not only won her first major in front of a home country crowd, but it was also her first LPGA Tour title.
While the end of major-championship season is upon us, there’s a big opportunity for someone to make history. Korda and Ryu are looking towards doing something so very rare in women’s golf, while other challengers, like Canada’s Brooke Henderson, could swoop in and spoil the history party at the very special 50th edition.