It is time for Fore-All.com’s predictions for the players most likely to win the 2026 LPGA Tour Player of the Year. The tour is deeper than ever, and this list showcases some of the best in the world, and just how many elite players there are right now.
Coming in at 10 is Haeran Ryu, who will be entering her fourth season on the LPGA Tour. The 2023 Rookie of the Year has continuously shown herself to be one of the best and most consistent players in the world, but is still waiting for a truly dominant season in the winner’s circle.
Throughout her three-year career, Ryu has missed just 10 cuts and has a win in each season. Her 2024 season saw her in contention almost every week, as she finished No. 2 in the CME rankings with 13 top-10 finishes in 26 starts. Not only that, she had seven top-three finishes.
Coming into 2025, expectations were high for the at the time 23-year-old from Korea, and she responded in decent form. Ryu made 19/23 cuts and had five top-10 finishes, but wasn’t consistently at the top of leaderboards at the level she was in 2024. She did compete well at Chevron and won in dominant fashion at the Black Desert Championship, but other than that two-week stretch, it was fairly average golf. She finished No. 21 in the CME Standings.
All that being said, she did gain some solid momentum at the end of the year, with top-15 finishes in her last three starts. She is the best ball striker on the LPGA Tour, ranking first in strokes gained tee-to-green in each of the last two seasons. Last year she led the Tour in greens in regulation and moved up 17 spots in driving distance to enter the top 20. She also hits it accurately off the tee, hitting 76% of fairways over the last two seasons.
The issue with Ryu is her short game. While her strokes gained around the green aren’t too essential with how many greens she hits, her putting is. She’s never been particularly consistent with the flat stick, but she was terrible in 2025, ranking No. 150 in strokes gained putting with -0.84.
Still, Minjee Lee proved in 2026 that putting struggles can be overcome, and it will be interesting to see what adjustments Ryu makes in the new year.
Ryu is simply too talented to keep away from these lists right now. Though she had a bit of a “down” season in 2025, her ball striking skill can get her back to being one of the top players in the world, as long as the putter cooperates a little bit.
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