Welcome to the third edition of the Just Women’s Sports LPGA power rankings, just in time for major season on tour. The LPGA will host two of its five major championships over the next four weeks, with the U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles teeing off this Thursday and the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship beginning June 23 at Congressional Golf Club.

Three new players have entered the top 10 since the last time we released our power rankings, with a new face taking over the No. 2 slot to challenge No. 1. Let’s run down the list.

1. Jin Young Ko

A second-place finish at Rancho Palos Verdes secured Ko’s spot atop the JWS power rankings, which she’s held all season long. After a strong start to the year, Ko is entering arguably the most important month of the year for her long-term goal of securing the career grand slam, which involves winning every single major at least once. Ko knocked two of the five off her list in 2019, with victories at the ANA Inspiration (now Chevron Championship) and Evian Championship.

For Ko to find the winner’s circle at one of the upcoming majors, she needs to get back to hitting greens more regularly. The 13-time LPGA winner has found 73.6 percent of greens in regulation in 2022, 3.8 percent less than her career average of 77.4. Last year, the 26-year-old hit 78.8 percent of greens in regulation during her five-win season.

Starts: 6
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Win at HSBC Women’s Championship, Runner-Up Palos Verdes Championship, T-4 JTBC Classic
Last Month: 1st

2. Minjee Lee

The Australian went from trending to winning. The LPGA’s leader in strokes gained from tee to green took home the Cognizant Founders Cup and acknowledged how well she’s been striking the golf ball this season.

“I just feel like I’ve kind of been trending,” Lee said after her victory in New Jersey. “I’ve been hitting it really, really well this whole season, and I just felt like it was kind of around the corner. I kept knocking on the door, and here I am now. I finished with a win this week.”

The LPGA began measuring strokes gained in 2021, seven years after the PGA Tour first started using it. It measures how well a player executes each shot they hit relative to the field’s average outcome from a given distance. For example, if on average the field takes three strokes to get to the hole from 160 yards, and a player gets there in two, they gained a stroke on the field from that distance.

Lee has gained 96.9 total strokes from tee to green this year in 28 rounds, ahead of In Gee Chun with 69.4 in 33 rounds. As a result, the seven-time tour winner leads the LPGA in scoring average (68.89), just ahead of Lexi Thompson at 69.26. If Lee can win two of the last four majors, she would be the first to do so since Ko in 2019.

Starts: 8
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Win at Founders Cup, T-2 HSBC Women’s Championship, T-3 DIO Implant Open
Last Month: 10th

3. Lydia Ko

Consistency remains the theme for Ko in 2022. She still hasn’t finished outside of the top 25, adding a top-3 finish at Palos Verdes, and her putter has been one of the biggest reasons why.

Ko is averaging the lowest putts per round (28.25) of her nine-year career, 0.06 better than her 2016 campaign when she was world No. 1 and won four times, including a major at the ANA Inspiration. This season, she’s tied for her second-best putts per green in regulation average (1.72), trailing only her 2016 performance (1.71).

The 17-time tour champion will look to win her first major title since her 2016 ANA Inspiration victory over the next month and solidify her return as one of the game’s greats. Only 28 other players have won three or more majors in the tour’s history, putting Ko firmly on the path to the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Starts: 8
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Win at Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio, T-3 Palos Verdes Championship
Last Month: 2nd

4. Atthaya Thitikul

The rookie notched another top-10 finish at the Cognizant Founders Cup, helping her maintain a 50 percent top-10 rate over 10 starts. Thitikul is tied for the most top-10s on tour with five alongside Celine Boutier. She also leads the LPGA with 172 birdies; Boutier is second with 162.

The Thai star holds a 160-point advantage in the Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year race, with her 568 points leading Hye-Jin Choi’s 408. The 19-year-old has an opportunity to separate herself even further and prove she’s poised enough to handle the high-pressure major tournaments. She finished fifth at the Amundi Evian Championship last season and posted a T-17 at the Chevron Championship this year. This week, she’ll make her first career start at the U.S. Women’s Open.

Starts: 10
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 5
Best Finish: Win at JTBC Classic, T-4 HSBC Women’s World Championship, T-6 Lotte Championship
Last Month: 4th

5. Lexi Thompson

Thompson has surged to fifth after not being ranked in our last edition, largely because she’s been making more starts. She’d teed it up only four times through the Lotte Championship ahead of our last rankings. Two starts later, she’s added a T-13 finish and her second runner-up finish of the season at the Cognizant Founders Cup. She leads the LPGA in strokes gained per round and greens in regulation (76.8 percent).

“I think as athletes we just want to see our hard work pay off,” Thompson said at the end of the Cognizant Founders Cup. “And when I’m home, I’m doing two workouts a day. I’m putting five to six hours out on the golf course, and just to see it pay off means the world to me. I’m going to continue to work my butt off and hopefully see the results.”

Thompson will look to ride the momentum and avenge her collapse at last year’s U.S. Open, when she lost a five-shot lead on the back nine. The 27-year-old, in her 15th start at the major, shot a 75 in the final round at Olympic Club, including a five-over par 41 on the back nine. Now, she returns to Pine Needles, where she made her U.S. Open debut at the age of 12. Her next win will be her first since the 2019 Shoprite LPGA Classic.

Starts: 6
Wins: 0
Top-10s: 4
Notable Finishes: Runner Up at Cognizant Founder’s Cup, Runner Up at LPGA Drive On Crown Colony, T-4 Chevron Championship
Last Month: Not Ranked

6. Hyo Joo Kim

Kim’s case for the power rankings is a complicated one, as she hasn’t made a start on the LPGA Tour since her win in Hawaii. That victory launched her to third in the power rankings. The South Korean did finish fourth in the KLPGA’s CreaS F&C The 44TH KLPGA Championship, has no bearing on her spot in these rankings.

Like Thompson, if Kim plays a few more events at the same level, she can quickly reclaim her previous spot.

Starts: 5
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Victory at the Lotte Championship, T-6 Honda LPGA Thailand, T-8 Chevron Championship
Last Month: 3rd

7. Nasa Hataoka

The Japanese star’s best two finishes this season have been in her last two starts, with her victory at Wilshire Country Club followed by a T-6 finish in New Jersey. Hataoka rolls into the U.S. Open with momentum after she lost to Yuka Saso in a playoff at Olympic Club last year, the second major playoff loss of her career. The first came when Sung Hyun Park defeated her and So Yeon Ryu at Kemper Lakes Golf Club in the 2018 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

Hataoka is tied with Jessica Korda for a label no player wants to hold onto for long: most victories on tour without a major. Perhaps a good sign for the two of them, two others have gotten over the hump in recent years. First, Sei Young Kim won the 2020 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, and then Minjee Lee added a major to her resume at the Amundi Evian Championship last year.

Starts: 10
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 2
Best Finish: Win at DIO Implant LA Open, T-6 Cognizant Founder’s Cup
Last Month: 6th

8. Marina Alex

The 31-year-old acknowledged after her victory at Rancho Palos Verdes — the second of her 10-year LPGA career — that she had been close to walking away from the game.

“If you had talked to me last year or the beginning of even this year, I didn’t think it was even a remote possibility that I was going to win ever again,” she said. “I didn’t know how much longer I really wanted to be golfing ever again.”

Instead, Alex overcame the No. 1 and No. 3 player in these power rankings for her first win in four years. She started working with a new swing coach last May in Claude Harmon, and the results have paid off this season. Her three top-10 finishes this year match her total from the 2020 and 2021 seasons combined.

Starts: 9
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 3
Notable Finishes: Win at Palos Verdes Championship, T-6 Honda LPGA Thailand
Last Month: Not Ranked

9. Jennifer Kupcho

Kupcho’s leap into Poppie’s Pond has kept her in the lead in the races for Rolex Player of the Year and the Rolex Annika Major Award. The 2021 Solheim Cup breakout star sits in third place in the 2023 US Solheim Cup points leaderboard, behind Lexi Thompson and Danielle Kang. Kupcho has posted three top-20 finishes since her victory at the Chevron Championship.

The lone major champion of 2022 aims to become the first player on the LPGA Tour to win back-to-back majors since Inbee Park won three in a row to start the 2013 season.

Starts: 10
Wins: 1
Top-10s: 2
Notable Finishes: Win at Chevron Championship, T-6 Honda LPGA Thailand
Last Month: 7th

10. Madelene Sagstrom

The Swede has racked up four consecutive top-10 finishes following a T-13 at the Chevron Championship. Three of the four have been top-5 finishes. She’s credited her run, in part, to “The Chimp Paradox,” a book by Steve Peters that’s helped her tune out the voice in the back of her head telling her she’s doing something wrong.

Sagstrom is 26th in the latest Rolex World Rankings, the best rank of her career after starting the 2022 season at 43rd. For the first time in Sagstrom’s six-year LPGA career, she has strung together consecutive top-10s finishes, let alone four in a row.

Starts: 11
Wins: 0
Top-10s: 4
Notable Finishes: T-3 DIO Implant LA Open, T-3 Cognizant Founders Cup, T-5 Bank of Hope LPGA Match Play
Last Month: Not Ranked

Kent Paisley is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering golf and the LPGA. He also contributes to Golf Digest. Follow him on Twitter @KentPaisley.

In this week's episode of The Late Sub, host Claire Watkins breaks down the newly reported indefinite absence of NWSL star Trinity Rodman from the Washington Spirit, with the 22-year-old attacker rehabbing an ongoing back injury that could reshape the prospects of both the Spirit and the USWNT.

Calling her "the face of the NWSL," Watkins details the Spirit star's long-term back injury, which has led Rodman to seek treatment with a team doctor in London — all while acknowledging that she doesn't think her "back will ever be 100%."

Watkins digs into the potential contributing factors to Rodman's current injury status, including the USWNT's heavy use of the forward during the 2024 Olympic gold medal-winning run in Paris — and whether the team will make different decisions going forward due to the fallout on players like Rodman.

"I'm really curious if [USWNT manager Emma] Hayes and her coaching staff will adjust the way they approach strikers in the future, or forwards in the future, or rotation — or if this is just one of those many stories of a player giving it all for the United States and living with the consequences," says Watkins.

As for Washington, Watkins note that — in the wake of copious injuries — the Spirit is still finding ways to win, with club owner Michele Kang and the coaching staff shrewdly managing the depleted roster.

"I think they would be a juggernaut if they were healthy, but they can win pretty, they can win ugly," notes Watkins.

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'An NWSL breaking point'

Watkins also points out that she thinks Rodman's choice to seek treatment in London could be significant, as the forward is currently in a contract year.

With multiple NWSL standouts recently defecting to European clubs, Watkins argues that the US league is hitting a "breaking point" when it comes to retaining top players.

"I am just really, really curious if, by the end of this season, this situation has led Rodman back to the Spirit or if this is the beginning of a player having to progress forward in a different environment," Watkins sums up.

About 'The Late Sub' with Claire Watkins

The Late Sub with Claire Watkins brings you the latest news and freshest takes on the USWNT, NWSL, and all things women's soccer. Special guest appearances featuring the biggest names in women’s sports make TLS a must-listen for every soccer fan.

Follow Claire on X/Twitter @ScoutRipley and subscribe to the Just Women’s Sports newsletter for more.

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There's a traffic jam in the middle of the NWSL standings, with this weekend's slate bound to create some distance among mid-table teams jockeying to break free from the pack.

Between rising underdogs and top-dog rivalries, expect the 2025 NWSL season's sixth matchday to leave it all on the field:

• No. 2 Orlando Pride vs. No. 6 Angel City, Friday at 8 PM ET (Prime): With both teams coming off demoralizing losses last weekend, the 2024 NWSL champs will fight to bounce back against the LA upstarts in Friday's marquee matchup.

• No. 10 Houston Dash vs. No. 11 Utah Royals, Friday at 8 PM ET (NWSL+): Tied up at four points apiece, the pair of struggling teams just below playoff contention on the NWSL table will battle for a boost above the cutoff line as the recently sold Royals take a trip to Texas on Friday.

• No. 3 Washington Spirit vs. No. 4 Gotham FC, Saturday at 1 PM ET (CBS): This week's top-table showdown features two injury-struck East Coast rivals getting rowdy at Audi — can Gotham turn things around or will Washington keep persevering?

• No. 9 Bay FC vs. No. 8 Seattle Reign, Saturday at 10 PM ET (ION): Seattle holds a slim tie-break over Bay FC as both teams hug the playoff line, with the Reign looking to build on last week’s Cascadia Clash victory over Portland.

This weekend has the potential to divide the contenders from the pretenders, while the league's top three clubs continue to hold court over the rest of the field.

Saturday's soccer lineup underlines a brewing East Coast rivalry, as the Washington Spirit hosts Gotham FC for the first time since knocking the Bats out of the 2024 NWSL semifinals.

"Just playing against them, you feel that fire," Spirit forward Makenna Morris told JWS this week, with Washington's Audi Field anticipating a large crowd for Saturday's match.

Both clubs know each other well, with 2021 NWSL champions Washington and 2023 trophy-winners Gotham seeing a number of big-name players migrating between New York and DC in recent years.

After finishing 2024 in the league's top four, both teams continue to lurk near the top of NWSL table this season, cementing the idea that the best rivalries blossom between winning sides.

"The [team] that poses the most challenge to you, it just makes you want to beat them so bad," said Washington midfielder Gabby Carle.

"You hate to play them because they're good, but you also love it because it's so competitive," echoed Morris.

Ultimately, familiarity is breeding healthy resentment between two of the NWSL's winningest sides, providing a little extra incentive to secure all three points in this weekend’s matchup.

How to watch NWSL rivals Washington vs. Gotham this weekend

The Spirit will host East Coast rival Gotham at 1 PM ET on Saturday, with live coverage of the 2024 NWSL semifinals rematch airing on CBS.

As the 2024/25 UEFA Women's Champions League (UWCL) wraps up its two-leg semifinals on Sunday, the English teams still in the running find themselves on the brink of elimination from Europe's most prestigious club competition.

Facing a 4-1 deficit against reigning champs Barcelona, Chelsea will aim to close the gap — and keep their historic quadruple hopes alive — at home this weekend.

Meanwhile, Arsenal will try to overcome a more manageable 2-1 deficit against eight-time Champions League winners Lyon, traveling to France to keep their UWCL campaign alive.

An English side hasn't won the UWCL since 2007, when Arsenal took home the WSL's lone European championship trophy.

"Huge respect for their history and what they have been doing and producing in the Champions League, in Europe," Arsenal manager Renée Slegers said of Lyon. "I think they're still a very strong side."

"Subconsciously, you always have that thing when you fall short, like last year," said Lyon midfielder and USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps, reflecting back on last season’s title loss to Barcelona. "You lose a game, you lose a tournament – the feeling is there until you're back in the the games that can fix that feeling."

How to watch the 2024/25 Champions League semifinals

Sunday's second leg of the 2024/25 Champions League semifinals kicks off with Chelsea vs. Barcelona at 9 AM ET, before Arsenal faces Lyon at 12 PM ET.

Both matches will air live on DAZN.