Ottawa·NewIt’s been an odd campaign for the native of Smiths Falls, Ont., barely making her presence felt on LPGA Tour leaderboards over the last 11 months. But she’s back at some happy hunting ground this week Henderson has several top-10s at season-ending tournamentAdam Stanley · for CBC News · Posted: Nov 19, 2025 1:01 PM EST | Last Updated: 30 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Brooke Henderson tees off at the LPGA International Crown tournament at the New Korea Country Club in Goyang, South Korea, last month. (Lee Jin-man/AP)Brooke Henderson knows the deal by now at the LPGA Tour season finale. She attends a formal party, plays alongside some impressive sponsors on both Tuesday and Wednesday — with a private country music concert thrown in for good measure — and then tees it up at Tiburón Golf Club, about 35 minutes from her Florida home.And, more often than not, she has plenty of success.It’s been an odd campaign for the native of Smiths Falls, Ont., through 2025 on the results ledger, barely making her presence felt on LPGA Tour leaderboards over the last 11 months. But she’s back at some happy hunting ground this week at the CME Group Tour Championship hoping for one last big result.Many top-10 finishesHenderson has only finished outside the top 25 once in the 10 times she’s teed it up at the schedule-closer and has five top-10 results, including last year.She finished tied for eighth in 2024 after a tidy final-round 66, her low round of the week.“I look forward to this event every year, so I think that’s a big [part] of it. There’s lots of good energy,” Henderson told CBC News in Florida. “You have to be pretty aggressive, but when your ball striking is on you can play pretty well. So hopefully the ball striking is good this week.”Henderson practices at the Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, Fl., on Tuesday. (Adam Stanley)Henderson, who comes to the season finale after a tie for 26th at the LPGA Tour event just outside Tampa last week, has had a fairly uncharacteristic season with just two top-10 results in 2025. Just one came in a stroke-play tournament. The first came at the T-Mobile LPGA Match Play, where she made the quarterfinals and technically finished tied for ninth.The other top-10 result? Her win on home soil at the CPKC Women’s Open — a year-maker, according to Henderson.For the first time in her career, there was a question at the midpoint of the year of whether she would earn her way into the Tour Championship. Only the top 60 in the Race to CME Globe standings get to tee it up this week. Her last win came in 2023, so her exemption into the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions had also run out.But her win in Canada “eased a lot of pressure.”“I look forward to this event every year and I’m super grateful about having this opportunity,” Henderson said. “I feel like, since August, my game has been in a really good spot. I haven’t necessarily seen the best results, but I’ve been close every week. I’ve been close to being in contention.“I’m excited about that and hopefully I can finish this year off strong.”Henderson poses with the trophy after winning the CPKC Women’s Open at the Mississauga Golf and Country Club in August. (Thomas Skrlj/The Canadian Press)She alluded to her ball striking as the key to her success this week because, if you had to pinpoint one specific area of her game that has held her back from stringing together a collection of good results, it’s that.In 2025 Henderson is 81st on the LPGA Tour in strokes gained: approach (a statistical method that measures how many strokes a player saves or loses on each shot and collected for driving, putting, and short game), a stat she was 42nd in a year ago. The potential is there for success, however, as she’s an impressive 13th on the LPGA Tour in greens in regulation percentage and the rest of her strokes-gained numbers are essentially the same year-over-year. She had nine top-10 finishes last year.At this event, Henderson said, she’s prepared to go all out.“You have to be aggressive, and you have to go for some things,” Henderson said. “For the most part, a lot of these girls are after one thing, so you’ve got to match them and hopefully better them.”Making the tripOne thing Henderson can always count on is the support from those in Smiths Falls and the whole of eastern Ontario. Her win this summer came at Mississaugua Golf and Country Club, the closest victory she’s had to her hometown ever. It meant dozens of family and friends were able to join in the champagne-soaked revelry in the 100-year-old clubhouse.Even given the chilly political climate between the United States and Canada, Henderson knows there will be lots of Canadians in Naples to cheer her on this week.“I’ve got a lot of fans this week. There are a lot of family and friends from the area but also family from Canada so it makes it a really special way to end the year,” Henderson said.The CME Group Tour Championship goes from Nov. 20-24. Jeeno Thitikul of Thailand, the game’s top-ranked player, is the defending champion and is in the driver’s seat to win Player of the Year honours at the conclusion of the week.The winner takes home about $5.6 million, the biggest first-place prize in women’s golf.Henderson has one more tournament on her schedule for 2025, where she will team up with fellow Canadian Corey Conners at the Grant Thornton Invitational, a limited-field tournament that pairs PGA Tour and LPGA Tour golfers together. The Canadian pair has finished second and tied for fourth the last two seasons.
Big hopes for Canada’s Brooke Henderson at CME Group Tour Championship
