For the first time in eight years, the golfer next in line to meet the LPGA Tour’s challenging Hall of Fame criteria is no longer clear. When Inbee Park became the 34th member in 2016, there was little question that at some point, then-19-year-old Lydia Ko would be next. The teen phenomenon had already demonstrated a dominant staying power, winning 12 times during a long run as the world No.1.
With Ko completing her Olympic medal trifecta with gold in the Paris Games to earn her 27th and final needed point to enter the hall, it is quite possible that no one else may qualify under the LPGA’s current points structure.
The LPGA requires players to earn 27 points to be eligible for its Hall of Fame, with the number of points needed and ways to gain them changing over the years. Getting to 27 is a slog – players earn a point for a regular victory, winning the Player of the Year or Vare Trophy or an Olympic gold medal. A major championship is a premium worth two. Players must also win a season-ending award or a major championship, a seemingly superfluous standard with how many points are needed.
The only active players within 10 points of the required 27 are Yani Tseng (23), Jin Young Ko (20), Stacy Lewis (19), Nelly Korda (17) and Ariya Jutanugarn (17). Only two of them have won during the past three seasons – Korda and Ko – and both have been injury-prone over their careers.
Korda, the current world No.1, and past No.1 Jin Young Ko have delivered two dominant multiple-point-earning seasons, a near-requisite to get to 27 points. Ko is a 15-time winner, including two majors and three season-ending awards. She earned 70 percent of her 20 points in two years, 2019 and 2021.
Ko won four times in 2019, including two majors, and swept the season awards. In her six points from 2021, she ripped two points away from Korda during the CME Group Tour Championship. The pair were part of a four-way tie for the 54-hole lead, and Ko sprinted away with a Sunday 63, winning the tournament and overtaking Korda for the Player of the Year award to earn two points.
Ko has dealt with numerous injuries in recent years. She had a nagging wrist injury in 2021 and 2022, a baulky knee that forced her to withdraw from the CME last season, and shoulder pain at the beginning of 2024. Since her injuries started up, Ko hasn’t had a multiple-point season, gaining one point in 2022 and 2023.
Korda’s ascendant 2024 alone has earned her 25 percent of the points needed to reach the hall. She started the season with 10 points and has earned seven more with her six-win season, including a major title in the Chevron Championship. The 26-year-old is a virtual lock to win the Player of the Year award to gain an eighth point and is contending for the Vare Trophy for a possible ninth. Korda gained six of her other 10 points in 2021 when she won the KPMG Women’s PGA, a gold medal in Tokyo and four other tour titles.
Korda’s 2024 emergence comes during one of her first healthy seasons in years, as the star has been injured for nearly half of her career. During the 2020 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, she withdrew after hurting her back and was sidelined for two months. Korda had surgery on a blood clot in 2022, which took six months to recover. In May 2023, Korda missed a month with another back injury.
Both Korda and Jin Young Ko probably need at least one more multi-point season to cross the 27-point threshold. Lydia Ko had three seasons of earning at least five points over her 12-year career. Tseng serves as a warning that commanding campaigns don’t guarantee future success, as the Taiwanese star won all 15 of her LPGA titles in five years before her stardom burned out.
If neither Korda nor Ko get to 27, the other alternative for someone to get into the hall would be the LPGA updating its qualification standards. The tour has done so twice in recent history. In 1998, it dropped the point requirement from 35 to 27 and created the veteran’s category to induct four-time major champion Donna Caponi, founder Marlene Bauer Hagge and 26-time winner Judy Rankin. In 2022, to ensure 25-time winner Lorena Ochoa would be eligible, the LPGA dropped its 10-year playing requirement and also allotted a point to the Olympic gold medallist, which helped get Lydia Ko her final qualification point.
Unless Korda or Ko get to 27, the tour may have to create a similar veteran’s category again or tweak its uber-high standards to at least let someone into the hall.
