Winners in professional golf continue to get younger and younger as players begin to mature as competitors sooner and advances in equipment and fitness allow them to become more powerful sooner.
Among the world's best professional tours, the LPGA has seen the most teenage winners -- both in terms of tournaments won and individual players to win in their teens. Most of those teenage winners have come since 2004.
However, among the crop of players that started with Paula Creamer winning the 2005 Sybase Classic as the age of 18 years, 9 months, 17 days, Lydia Ko is the youngest winner in LPGA Tour history in terms of both age of her first win and having the most wins on the list of those by the youngest players.
Lydia Ko became the youngest winner in LPGA Tour history when she won the 2012 Canadian Women's Open as an amateur at 15 years, 4 months, 3 days old. Almost exactly a year later, Ko successfully defended her title in the 2013 Canadian Women's Open to win on the LPGA at the second-youngest age: 16 years, 4 months, 1 day.
Both of Ko's first two LPGA wins put her as younger than the prior record holder, Lexi Thompson. Lexi Thompson had been the youngest winner in LPGA Tour for just about a year after she won the 2011 Navistar LPGA Classic at 16 years, 7 months, 8 days.
Ko's next four wins on the LPGA are ranked third through sixth in the youngest winners in LPGA history. Brooke Henderson is the third-youngest person to win LPGA history. She earned her first title at 17 years, 11 months, 6 days at the 2015 LPGA Cambia Portland Classic.
The legendary Marlene Hagge is the fourth-youngest person to win for the first time on the LPGA, taking the 1952 Sarasota Open at 18 years, 14 days old.
The LPGA has seen seven of its eight youngest champions crowned since 2005, when an 18-year-old Paula Creamer won the Sybase Classic.
Two years later, Morgan Pressel became the youngest major champion in taking the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Ultimately, Pressel's record was undercut by Ko, however, when Ko became the youngest major winner in LPGA Tour history and the youngest major winner in golf history by taking the 2015 Evian Championship at 18 years, 4 months, 20 days.
Youngest individual winners in LPGA Tour history
All winners in their teens; reflecting date of their first win
- 15 years, 4 months, 3 days -- Lydia Ko, 2012 Canadian Women's Open
- 16 years, 7 months, 8 days -- Lexi Thompson, 2011 Navistar LPGA Classic
- 17 years, 11 months, 6 days -- Brooke Henderson, 2015 LPGA Cambia Portland Classic
- 18 years, 14 days -- Marlene Hagge, 1952 Sarasota Open
- 18 years, 4 months, 20 days -- Lydia Ko, 2015 Evian Championship
- 18 years, 9 months, 17 days -- Paula Creamer, 2005 Sybase Classic
- 18 years, 10 months, 9 days -- Morgan Pressel, 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship
- 18 years, 11 months and 2 days -- Jessica Korda, 2018 Women's Australian Open
- 18 years, 11 months, 3 weeks -- Minjee Lee, 2015 Kingsmill Championship
