Nelly Korda wins Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions after event cut to 54 holes

Nelly Korda is a winner once again. More on that in a bit, though. All due respect to Nelly.

While Korda picked up her first victory in over a year there are a lot of layers to how it came about. The first LPGA Tour event of the season wrapped on Sunday, although that is a complicated way of putting things.

It was announced by the LPGA Tour on Sunday morning that the event, the Tour portion and not the celebrity one, would be trimmed to 54 holes due to weather.

Based on conversations between the rules officials, tournament staff, partners and the grounds team, the decision has been made to reduce the 2026 Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions to a 54-hole event. The eight players who have not finished their third round will resume their third round at 2:15 p.m. ET today, Feb. 1.

Play will continue with Lake Nona Golf & Country Club becoming playable in competitive competition at its peak temperature. The weather and temperature for tomorrow is forecasted to be the same as this morning which will likely create similar conditions and prevent us from completing 72 holes.

We want to thank Hilton Grand Vacations, our athletes and fans for their support over the past 24 hours as we navigated these conditions and are looking forward to returning to Lake Nona Golf & Country Club in 2027.

Part of what made this news so confusing was that the celebrity portion of the event was literally underway when the statement came out. It was obviously cold as Florida has seen some intense weather as of late, but the LPGA themselves announced early Sunday morning that there was no frost and that the third round, which did not finish on Saturday, was scheduled to resume at 10am local time.

It was an hour and change later when a follow-up announcement was made that the course was being evaluated.

Again, the weather in Florida was very cold. That is certainly putting matters lightly. Reporting on the ground though made it seem like the weather was not so intense that the tournament should have been called the way that the LPGA did. At the very least there was widespread confusion as to how the Tour came to the decision that they did.

Given that some golf was played, both by celebrities and the Tour players needing to finish their third round, it made the fact that no fourth round could be played at all a very confusing idea to some. A Monday finish is never ideal, this could have hypothetically even stretched to a less ideal Tuesday, but the LPGA Tour is not playing again until the second half of the month. In the interest of overall fairness and integrity to the process, it feels like exploring those options may have been preferable.

The Tour could have very well explored those options to be clear. A big reason for public outcry right now is the lack of clarity on the story from the LPGA Tour. Their decision is obviously final though and as a result Nelly Korda was declared the winner of the first event of the season and 16th overall.

The final round of the event was scheduled to air on NBC which would have been great for the LPGA Tour. While one of its biggest stars winning the first event of the season should be a result met with universal celebration, this one came under some pretty strange circumstances that invites a lot of questions.

It is a left-footed start to 2026.