Staff WriterIn a week when Orlando felt more like Omaha, the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions turned into a three-day survival exam in thermals and hand-warmers – and Nelly Korda still made it look like a casual stroll. The season-opening showcase at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club was officially reduced to 54 holes thanks to brutal cold and gusting winds, but Korda had already done enough damage on Saturday to walk off with her 16th LPGA Tour title.
The event became the first LPGA tournament shortened since the 2025 Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G, and you got the sense Mother Nature was auditioning for a spot on the Rules Committee.
Korda Wins Without Hitting a Sunday Shot
Korda closed her third round on Saturday with an eight-under-par 64 – the lowest score recorded all week at Lake Nona – then never had to strike a competitive shot on Sunday as officials pulled the plug on a fourth round that just wasn’t going to happen. She finished at 13-under, three clear of Amy Yang, and claimed her first victory in a season debut since joining the LPGA Tour in 2017.
It was also her first win in an event where the scheduled holes were reduced, a quirky footnote for a player whose CV is starting to read like small-print in a history book. She now sits No. 1 in the 2026 Race to CME Globe, already has one win and one top-10 for the year, and has pushed her career LPGA earnings north of $16 million.
After a 2025 season full of great golf but no trophies, this one clearly meant something extra.
“Yeah, golf is a game of centimeters. You know, there were so many times last year where I wished I had an inch here or a centimeter there where it would’ve changed the story completely. That’s how it goes sometimes.
As long as you are mentally 100% in it and preparing to your best ability, that’s all you can control at the end of the day; same with weather. So I was so close. I played really well last year. Obviously didn’t get the win, but I played some amazing golf the first three days this week and I’m really proud of myself, my team, and all the work that we have put in when no one was watching and everyone was talking about it. So just very happy to get the first win of the year, and hopefully that leads into a great year, too.
No matter what, like I’m always going put 100% into it. With results, when it comes to sports, you just never know. The only thing you can control is the level and the input that you put into your craft and your sport. I will always be doing that. No matter the results, I know that mentally I’m doing that every single day I step on the golf course, and that’s what I’m proud of.”
That R3 64 wasn’t just timely, it was historic: her lowest round at Lake Nona, her best score at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions since she fired another 64 back in 2021 at Tranquilo, and her lowest LPGA round since a 63 at The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican in 2025. She led the field in birdies with 16 over three rounds and, for good measure, became the first American to win this event since Danielle Kang in 2022.
She’s now the 28th different American player to reach 16 wins on the LPGA Tour, joins her sister Jessica as a champion at this tournament (Jessica won in 2021), and moves past Amy Yang to No. 8 on the LPGA’s all-time career money list. For a player who already owns two majors, a 2020 Olympic gold medal and four Solheim Cup appearances, this felt less like a new chapter and more like volume two.
Amy Yang Chases, Proves She’s Ready
Someone had to play the role of “persistent shadow,” and Amy Yang did it with her usual quiet precision. She finished three shots back at 10-under, completing her final two holes of the third round on Sunday morning and making pars on both – not exactly the sort of finishing stretch that lends itself to wild charges, given the temperatures.
Still, it was her best LPGA finish since the 2024 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and a very tidy way to launch a new season.
“I wish we played fourth round, but I think I did really well last three rounds, especially — how can I say this? I think I just proved myself, to myself that I prepared well in the offseason, and I have more clear idea what to work on for the next few days for the actual, full travel starts. And, yeah, I’m happy how I played this week.”
Defending champion A Lim Kim, who rode the Lake Nona rollercoaster so brilliantly last year, settled into a tie for ninth this time around. Not a repeat, but hardly a cold start either.
Fish Freezes Out the Celebs
In the celebrity division – the tournament’s walking, talking reminder that golf is a game and not just a spreadsheet – former tennis star Mardy Fish once again proved that his handicap is as real as the frost on the fairways.
Fish racked up 126 points in the Modified Stableford format, including 36 points on his nine holes on the final day, to win the celebrity field. At this point, you’d almost be forgiven for checking his LPGA eligibility status.
He was also more than happy to explain why the week is circled on his calendar in permanent marker: ‘Yeah, yeah, two years ago we had some kind of cold stuff as well. Not like this but it was cold. You know, it is late January, right? Everywhere else in the country is freezing outside of Los Angeles where I live. I’ll get back there tonight hopefully.
The tournament is spectacular for a number of reasons. One of which Mark and — the CEO of Hilton Grand Vacations and Mackenzie and their whole team is spectacular in terms of taking care of the players and making it super fun, super easy with ticket requests and stuff like that. We got a lot of family and friends around here that want to come out and I don’t get to see them that much/ living on the other side of the country.
Being able to kind of do that, you know, them being so accommodating with pretty much everything; hotel is awesome as well. I played tournaments kind of my whole life, so there is a lot of like little things that maybe people don’t understand that we love the Australian Open because transportation was so good, right? It was like very close to the hotel; site is close to the hotel. So just a really friendly, awesome way to start the year on this part. And then the second part, maybe not second, but just 1A and 1B is getting to play with the ladies out here and just being able to watch them and how good they are and how they play is completely — you almost feel like you’re playing a different golf course from some of the par-5s and shorter or longer par-4s and stuff where sometimes they have hybrids into greens or long irons and we have wedges and stuff and they are still making less scores than we are.
We think we’re good and then we see them and we play with them and they’re pretty awesome. And they’re all super sweet. I’ve made a lot of friendships out there. Getting to see Nelly win here was fun. I won this tournament when it was in Tranquilo when Jessica won. Now Nelly and I won here, so that’s cool. You know, a little tennis connection there with her father obviously and brother.
And then Lydia, playing with Lydia yesterday, she’s such an inspiration and now a Hall of Famer. Such a sweetheart. I love, love watching her. I can’t tell if she makes a double bogey or birdie. It’s incredible. Her attitude is incredible. I wish I could do that remotely half as good as she does on the tennis court and the golf course. So just awesome all the way around. Every year, every woman that I played with has been phenomenal and just fun and easy.
I’m always petrified of playing too slow or getting in their way because they’re playing a really tournament. They’re always so sweet and nice. So, yeah, that’s kind of the couple things about this week.”
When the celebrity champion is talking about transport logistics, hotel proximity and Lydia Ko’s emotional flatline between birdies and doubles, you know the tournament organisers are ticking the right boxes.
Why 54 Holes? LPGA Explains the Call
From a distance, cutting a signature event like the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions to 54 holes might look like an easy decision. In reality, it involved frozen turf, safety concerns and more contingency planning than a Ryder Cup captain’s pairings sheet.
Chief Tour Business and Operations Officer Ricki Lasky spelled out the logic – and the limitations – of battling the elements: “First of all, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it. Who would’ve thought we would be sitting in Florida at the end of January. As I was driving up in those conditions this morning, it was 23 degrees. Feels like temperature of 11, so pretty shocking.
First and foremost, I have to thank Hilton Grand Vacations and the crew at Lake Nona Golf Club. What we’ve gone through in the last 24 hours to try to get ready for today has been second to none, and appreciate their partnership very, very much. As we watched Karen and Tom in the broadcast yesterday on 17, and as the wind was gusting, we knew we were in an unplayable situation and had to call play yesterday.
It was from that point forward we started scenario planning, what we could accomplish for today. We tried to become very creative to ensure that we could share our celebrity component of this great event and also attempt to finish 72 holes. What we found was we had a good plan going into the day. We shortened the celebrity portion to nine holes so we could get that in for that exhibition component and the modified Stableford in which we play. Then we really looked at trying to get started at 10:00 a.m.
What we found was when we got on site and talked to several of the players when they were warming up was that the grounds was really hard and it was changing the trajectory of their shots as they were practicing.
The balls were releasing when they weren’t supposed to be so, so we pushed back. We really tried to take as much time as we possibly could to get all 72 holes into play. We certainly did everything we could. We worked with the grounds crew, which again was impeccable.
We had to make the really hard decision to call it at 54. I just want to say, if anybody has a way to get to the gods that be and Mother Nature and can make a call for us, I’m all ears. Let’s have a conversation. But unfortunately we had to call it at 54. But super excited for getting the 54 in. The competition was amazing, and congratulations to Nelly Korda.”
You can’t say they didn’t try. When the driving range starts behaving like a concrete car park and balls are bouncing into zip codes they have no business visiting, the line between “challenging” and “unplayable” gets very thin.
A Champion Re-Ignited
Strip away the thermal layers, and the 2026 edition of the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions will be remembered for one thing: Nelly Korda picking up right where her dominant 2024 left off.
Last season she won seven times, including five in a row, took home Rolex Player of the Year, the Rolex ANNIKA Major Award, led the U.S. at the Solheim Cup and reminded everyone why she’s been a two-time Olympian and gold medallist. Starting 2026 with another trophy – in a week when the weather was the real opponent – suggests the rest of the LPGA might be in for another long year.
The holes may have been fewer, the temperatures lower and the schedule mangled, but the result felt strangely inevitable: when conditions get weird and history is lurking, Nelly Korda tends to be somewhere near the trophy, bare fingers on the silver, looking like she never left.
