2026 HSBC Women’s World Championship Preview: Singapore, on Fire

Lydia Ko after winning the 2025 HSBC Women’s World Championship (Photo:  LPGA/Getty Images)

Nine of the world’s top ten players descend on Sentosa Golf Club for the 18th edition of Asia’s Major — and the stage has never felt more charged.

The wave that started in Thailand is about to crash in Singapore.

It started Sunday in Chonburi. Atthaya Thitikul — Jeeno to everyone in Thai golf and, by now, nearly everyone in women’s golf — stood over a birdie putt on the final green at Siam Country Club with the kind of crowd behind the ropes that you usually only see at the Ryder Cup. Thousands of Thai fans. A nation watching. And somewhere in that mass of noise and color, her mother, watching her daughter compete professionally for the very first time. When the putt dropped, the place didn’t just applaud. It erupted.

Jeeno described the emotional weight of it afterward with a specificity that no press-release quote could capture. Winning at home, she said, meant she “never expected about the result there.” What she expected, what she wanted, was simpler: “I only expect that the fans get the best because they come to watch us play.” She had watched a clip of her own reaction and found the detail that undid her — it was her mother’s first time watching her play professionally. “I think that would probably have meant a lot to her,” she said. “And honestly, it touched my heart.”

She flew south to Singapore on Monday. The 2026 HSBC Women’s World Championship begins Thursday at Sentosa Golf Club’s Tanjong Course, and the question hanging over the whole week is whether any player on earth has the game right now to stop her.

Consider the field assembled on this island: nine of the world’s top ten players are in it. The $3 million purse is the largest this event has ever carried. HSBC has just renewed its partnership through 2030. This is not merely a stop on the LPGA calendar. It is, by common agreement among the players themselves, Asia’s Major.

Why the 2026 HSBC Women’s World Championship Belongs on Every Golf Fan’s Radar

Sentosa Golf Club sits on an island just off Singapore’s southern coastline, separated from the city by a short causeway and about thirty degrees of humidity that have nowhere to go. The container ships move through the strait beyond the 18th green with the casual indifference of things that have been doing this for a long time. The resort hotels rise above the tree line. In the distance, on a clear morning, you can see the skyline of a city-state that has made itself into one of the great crossroads of the world.

The Tanjong Course, which has hosted this event since 2007, plays to a par 72 over 6,793 yards. Length is not its weapon. The Tanjong’s weapon is its greens — TifEagle Bermuda surfaces that the grounds crew double-cuts each morning and rolls again in the afternoon if conditions demand it, running at Stimp 11.5 to 12 feet. They are large greens with subtle breaks that accumulate like compound interest. Miss the right portion of one of them and a birdie becomes a three-putt bogey that costs you your Thursday.

Shannon Tan, Singapore’s LET Order of Merit winner and one of two hometown players in this field, offered the clearest window into what makes the Tanjong so difficult. “The greens here are really big,” she said. Her advice: “Expect to hit about 16 greens but you expect that those will have long putts, and that’s where speed control and lag putting comes in.” She didn’t sound generous with tips to rivals. She was describing what she has felt standing over those slopes in practice rounds. She said she had a few more secrets but would “probably just say one” — and that was it.

There has been rain this week. The greens are softer than last year. Ruoning Yin noticed it immediately during her practice rounds, pulling up her 2025 score card to compare. “Last year, my total score was 2-under,” she said. Her read on the softer conditions: “I think it will give us a lot of birdie chances.” She is specifically targeting her putting and short game this week, having watched those statistics fall short of her standards in 2025. Her preparation philosophy is blunt: she spends pre-tournament time on the course itself rather than the range, because “if you’re just spending time on the range, you’re just all flat” — you learn nothing about slopes and shot shapes from flat ground.

The rough is cut at 57mm in its primary depth. Charley Hull, who arrived from Riyadh a day late after travel delays and walked the course for the first time Wednesday morning, noted it is “playing a lot longer this year” and that “the ball is not rolling out as much.” Her assessment on whether her go-for-broke approach still works here: “You can always play aggressive around here.” That is both a strategic observation and a personality statement.

The Defending Champion: Lydia Ko and the Art of Coming Back

Lydia Ko has played in every single edition of this event. Twelve appearances. She finished second here in 2015 when she was already one of the most famous golfers in the world, then spent a decade navigating the particular difficulty of being beloved at a tournament she could not close.

She won it last year. In her eleventh appearance, by four strokes, on a day when the junior girls who used to reach up to her hip — now grown, still bringing handmade signs to the gallery — gave something back. “I feel like it was a win that was special for a lot of us,” she said Tuesday, “not just for myself.” She spoke about those fans with the ease of someone describing family: “From seeing some of the junior little girls, that was literally up to my hip height, and now they are getting so much bigger.”

She arrived this week having rested a day in transit from Thailand, where she played solid golf despite not feeling well. “I feel like I have a lot of good momentum coming into this week,” she said. “The game is trending in the right direction.” She played the back nine Tuesday in a practice round, drawing on memory. And the question of whether defending changes anything about her mindset drew a clean answer: “I don’t think my mindset changes at all.” She knows what this course demands. She also knows she can win here.

“I feel like my game is trending to the point where I know that if I just keep working on it, I’ll become a better golfer and the results kind of sort itself out.”

Ko is ranked sixth in the world right now, which tells you more about the depth of this field than anything diminishing about her form. Her career statistics are what they are: 23 LPGA wins, 118 top tens, $21.5 million in earnings, a Gold Medal in Paris, and a spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame earned at an age when most players are still figuring out their equipment.

She has not yet won the U.S. Women’s Open. She said so Tuesday without prompting, and without distress. “The U.S. Women’s Open has always been a big star or key on the schedule in any season. I obviously haven’t won that. So that’s always a motivation.” Beyond that specific goal, she described a broader philosophy: process over results. “I’m honestly excited for the process,” she said, “not really much — what exact event that I really want to grasp.”

There was one line from Tuesday that landed with particular honesty: after thirteen years on tour, she said, sometimes she turns up and thinks, “Okay, this again.” But she said it with warmth rather than resignation. She is still excited. She is becoming more consistent. She knows exactly who she is as a golfer.

The World No. 1: Jeeno Thitikul and What Comes After a Home Win

There is a version of Atthaya Thitikul that fans first encountered in 2022, when she was nineteen years old and became the world’s top-ranked women’s golfer for the first time. It lasted two weeks. She has described that period with a specificity only someone who has lived it can summon: “I was so young, and then I just put a lot of pressure on myself. Even I know a lot of people already had eyes on me … but obviously I’m not have that much experience.” Every missed shot felt catastrophic. “At that time I see things so serious. Even if I miss one shot, I felt that was bad.”

That version of Jeeno is gone.

The current version — the one who won the Honda LPGA Thailand in front of tens of thousands of her own people, the one leading the Race to CME Globe with 595 points, the one who earned the 2025 Rolex Player of the Year award — has rebuilt the interior architecture of her game into something calmer and more spacious. “Right now, when I have a bad shot, it’s okay, you have another one,” she said Tuesday. “I think it’s more relaxing.”

The Honda Sunday was not a relaxed round. It was, by her own telling, a nerve-filled afternoon across sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. “It’s so exciting, and it’s nerves, pressure,” she said. “I know 16 and 17 was tough. Like to able to get par and even birdies.” What carried her through was experience, and a conscious choice about how to frame the moment: “This is the time that you need to enjoy with it, need joy with excitement. Need joy with the nervous moments. That’s why I kind of try to dance in the rain.”

“I really enjoyed it to be where I am right now. I’m not going to be in this position forever. There’s going to be more top players coming up — but I want to perform and enjoy this position as best I can.”

She came to the Tanjong knowing she has never finished outside the top ten here in four starts. She finished tied second last year, just four shots behind Ko. The course suits her: she needs her driver on the fairways, because the Tanjong rough tests everything, and she needs a putter that can navigate speed and slope. Both were working in Thailand. She was honest that her iron accuracy was not where she wanted it to be heading into Honda, and then she won anyway. “You don’t need perfect shots,” she said. “You can be 50 percent this week, you can be 60 percent, but you’ll be able to get it done.”

How does she manage expectations as the number one ranked player in the world? She reset on Monday. “Every week, every reset,” she said. “Everyone has equal opportunities to be able to win the tournament, right? How many players, like 70-something players, we all have the same chance right now.” Her job, as she defines it, is to be good at the shots she has, good at each day as it comes.

The Challenger: Charley Hull and the Expectation She Has Created for Herself

Charley Hull has, by reaching world number three, become the highest-ranked British woman in the history of the Rolex Rankings. She noted this with the tone of someone acknowledging that a package has arrived: “It’s pretty cool.” Her goal has always been number one, she said. But she’s not the type to stare at rankings. “I just look at it, think it’s pretty cool, carry on, and crack on play golf.”

She won the PIF Saudi Ladies International earlier this month — playing so well that she stopped between nines for a helping of mashed potatoes because she was “just really, really hungry.” In Singapore’s heat, she expects to dial that back: “I’ll probably just stick with a banana.” It is unclear whether this is meaningful tournament preparation or simply a very Charley Hull answer. Probably both.

Sky Sports ran a broadcast promo this week asking whether 2026 would be Charley Hull’s year — whether she would win her first major. She was asked about it directly on Wednesday. “I always like really want to win a major. That’s my goal,” she said. “Obviously had quite a lot of second-place finishes in majors. I’ll get there. Just carry on enjoying and not put too much pressure on myself. It’s just a game at the end of the day.”

The relaxed framing obscures a serious threat. Hull has seven Solheim Cup appearances for Europe. She has three LPGA wins. She has finished T4 here in 2025 and T12 here in 2017. She walks the Tanjong aggressively, and she arrived here without having seen the course this year until Wednesday morning. That may actually suit her — no time to overthink, just play.

The Deep Field: Names You Cannot Overlook

This tournament would draw scrutiny with only Ko, Jeeno, and Hull in the field. The depth of what surrounds them is almost unreasonable.

Minjee Lee, ranked fourth in the world, tees off at 10:10 a.m. alongside Chizzy Iwai and Linn Grant. Lee is one of the most consistent players in the sport over the past several seasons. Miyu Yamashita, ranked fifth, plays alongside Ruoning Yin and defending 2024 champion Hannah Green, who knows better than most what it takes to close here.

Jin Young Ko, ranked thirty-second, plays from hole ten in the earlier morning wave alongside Ariya Jutanugarn and Haeran Ryu. Jin Young Ko won this event in both 2022 and 2023, both times at seventeen under par.  She arrives in a season where the tour has grown significantly around her, which can make it easy to overlook the fact that she remains, when healthy and fully focused, one of the best players in the history of the sport.

Lottie Woad, the English rookie ranked ninth in the world, brings the unencumbered confidence of someone who does not yet know what she is supposed to find difficult. Sei Young Kim, ranked tenth, holds the Tanjong’s 18-hole scoring record — a 62 she shot in the fourth round of 2018. Hyo Joo Kim leads the 2026 tour in scoring average at 66.50. The field does not have a visible floor.

Singapore’s Own: Shannon Tan and Xingtong Chen

Perhaps the most emotionally resonant storyline of the week that does not involve world rankings plays out on hole ten at 10:04 Thursday morning, when Shannon Tan walks to the tee in front of a Singaporean crowd that has been following her career since she was a teenager watching this very event on television.

Tan won the LET Order of Merit last year. This is her third professional season. She improved her up-and-down percentage from 35 to 52 percent in a single year — numbers that translate, she said, into saved shots and better overall scores. She also admitted Tuesday what most people in her position would think but not say: “I’ll admit, I still get starstruck sometimes.” She has played alongside many of these players now at the British Open and Evian, gotten to know some of them personally. But growing up watching them from the stands and then standing beside them on a professional tee box is its own specific sensation.

Her goal is the LPGA card. It has been since she turned professional. “I always wanted to play on the LPGA,” she said, “and I would watch a lot of the LPGA coverage when I was like maybe 14, 15, 16, 17.” She still watches. She watched them play Thailand on television last week. Playing alongside them — at home, in front of Singaporean fans, in a field stacked with nine of the world’s top ten — is preparation she described as irreplaceable: “Playing amongst the big names will sort of add to my learning experience leading up to the majors this year.”

Beside her in the field is Xingtong Chen, a Singaporean amateur playing on a sponsor’s invitation. Two Singaporean players in one HSBC field is not a coincidence. Tan said it herself: “I’m thankful in terms of Singapore Golf having two Singaporeans in the field this year — it’s also a good thing to showcase Singapore golf on the world stage.”

Ruoning Yin: Five Wins, One Major, and a Flame to Carry

Ruoning Yin is 23 years old. She has five LPGA wins and a major. She was a torchbearer at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina earlier this month, running through streets lined with people waving and cheering. She said she can barely reconstruct the details: “When I think of it, I can’t remember much because my mind is just like blank.” What stayed with her was not the mechanics of carrying a flame but the feeling of carrying something larger: “It’s not about carrying the flame but it’s more about carrying the hopes and the greatness.”

She arrived in Singapore saying her game is sharper than it has been at the start of any previous season. Not rusty. Better-tuned. “I think my game is sharper compared to at this time of any past years,” she told her caddie and coach last week. “So it’s not as rusty.” She wants to put on a good show. That phrase — simple, direct — recurred in her press conference more than once.

On the subject of goals for the season, she offered the most economical answer available: “Absolutely. Any major is fine.” She said it without a trace of irony. She meant it as a statement of readiness rather than arrogance — the confidence of someone whose achievements, as she put it, “is way ahead of what I expecting it” when she first joined the tour.

She has also done the internal work that separates the great ones from the merely talented. She described watching Jeeno manage self-talk on course and recognizing herself in the earlier version: “I was like Jeeno, I think. I was like so negative about it when I hit a bad shot when I was younger.” Now: “How can I learn from a bad shot and to at least avoid the same mistake next time.” The shot is over. The next one is what matters.

The Season’s Larger Context

The 2026 LPGA season is three events old, and Jeeno already leads the Race to CME Globe with 595 points. Nelly Korda sits second at 500 — Korda is not in this field this week, which does not meaningfully thin the competition when nine of the top ten are present. The Aon Risk Reward Challenge designates the 13th hole at Sentosa as one of its scoring holes: a par five that demands a decision from approximately 250 yards out, bunkers guarding both sides of the fairway. Only five percent of players who have attempted to reach that green in two shots over the past three years have succeeded. Those who managed it gained more than half a stroke on the field. Golf, in that one statistic, is the whole sport in miniature.

HSBC’s renewal through 2030 was announced this week. Ko spoke about the partnership with the warmth of someone who has benefited from it for twelve years: “As an organisation and members of our tour, we are very thankful for partners like HSBC, who hasn’t just been here through the good times but through the lows, as well.” She said what the players all say but rarely with this specificity: “Partners like HSBC, we really wouldn’t be here without them today.”

Jeeno’s endorsement of the event came with characteristic directness. She loves the golf course. She loves the organization. And then: “For me, it’s food, and the city. The hotel is in a good condition. Just keep it there, please.” She repeated a version of that endorsement later in the same press conference. It may be the most genuine advertisement a tournament has ever received.

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