The LPGA Tour announced that Atthaya Thitikul earned the Vare Trophy following her fifth-place finish at the CME Group Tour Championship.
Thitikul is the 34th different winner of the Vare Trophy and the second player from Thailand to earn the honor, joining Ariya Jutanugarn (2018).
The 2021 Race to Costa del Sol champion won the 2023 Vare Trophy for recording the season’s lowest scoring average of 69.533. It is the 13th-lowest Vare Trophy-winning scoring average in the award’s history, tying Stacy Lewis’ 69.53 from 2014. She is the first player in the award’s history to win the Vare Trophy without earning a victory in the same year.
Following The ANNIKA, four players recorded scoring averages below 70, with Thitikul leading Hyo Joo Kim by only 0.013 strokes. Kim needed to average 69.432 strokes per round at the CME Group Tour Championship to pass Thitikul. Jin Young Ko ranked third at the start of the week and needed an average score of 65.080, but withdrew prior to the third round at Tiburon Golf Club, therefore eliminating her from the Vare Trophy race, as she needed to complete all four rounds to get to the threshold of 70 rounds needed to qualify for the award. Xiyu Lin ranked fourth and needed to record an average score of 64.594 to pass Thitikul this week.
Heading into the final day of the 2023 LPGA Tour season, Kim could have potentially passed Thitikul with a 64 or better, but ended Sunday with a final-round 68, leaving her with a season-long scoring average of 69.628.
Thitikul earned a Tour-leading 13 top-10 finishes this season, including two runner-up performances at The Ascendant LPGA benefiting Volunteers of America and the Maybank Championship. She also was a member of the winning Thailand Team at the 2023 Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown in her first appearance.
In 2022, Thitikul became a Rolex First-Time Winner at the JTBC Classic presented by Barbasol and added a second Tour victory at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship presented by P&G. She also was the second-consecutive player from Thailand to earn the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Award last season, clinching the honor with two events left in the year.
“You know what? I had no idea I was going to win the Vare Trophy, to be honest. Like I mentioned, in the middle of the season I played really bad. I mean, missed two cut in the major events and then also not playing quite good in the middle of the year,” said Thitikul. “I think what it really means for me when I just bounce back from [being] really uncomfortable and I don’t have any confidence there during that time. It’s just like really happy that I go over it, go past it, overcome it.”
The Vare Trophy was presented to the LPGA by Betty Jameson in 1952, in honor of the great American player Glenna Collett Vare. Vare Trophy scoring averages are computed on the basis of a Member’s total yearly score in Official Tournaments divided by the number of official rounds she played during a season.
