Two days after a wire-to-wire victory at the Chevron Championship that handed her a third major and the world No. 1 ranking, Nelly Korda is back on the range — this time at El Camaleón Golf Course at Mayakoba, where the LPGA’s Mexico Riviera Maya Open tees off Thursday, April 30, 2026. Her presence is the headline; the supporting cast, a Tiger Woods-designed seaside course, and a $2.5 million purse round out one of the more underrated weeks on the LPGA calendar.
The Field And The Storyline
The 127-player field is led by Korda — currently a +400 favorite at most books — but it’s not exactly thin behind her. The Iwai twins are both in the field, with reigning Mayakoba champion Chizzy Iwai (World No. 19) returning to defend her title and her sister Akie Iwai (No. 18) right alongside her. The pair are among the most distinctive stories in women’s golf right now, with eight top-ten finishes between them in 2026.
Other notables in the field include Linn Grant (No. 28), Minami Katsu (No. 29), Jin Hee Im (No. 32), and Mexican home favorite Gaby Lopez (No. 33). All four sit inside the top 35 of the Rolex Women’s World Rankings.
Korda is the only player from the top 10 in the world in the event, which is part of the storyline. With many of the absolute top names skipping the post-major week, this is a real opportunity for the next tier of the LPGA to make a move on the year’s earnings list. For Korda specifically, a back-to-back win would be a meaningful early-season statement at a moment when she’s just reclaimed the No. 1 ranking from Lydia Ko.
(For the broader picture of how this LPGA season has been unfolding, see our deep dive on the LPGA’s best season ever and our coverage of Korda’s Chevron win.)
El Camaleón: A Course That Punishes Aggression
The Mayakoba course is one of the more unusual venues in professional golf. Designed by Tiger Woods’s design firm collaborator Greg Norman in 2005 (later revised) and managed as part of the Mayakoba Resort in Playa del Carmen, El Camaleón is wall-to-wall paspalum grass — a dense, salt-tolerant turf that plays significantly differently from the bentgrass and bermudagrass most LPGA pros are accustomed to.
The defining characteristic for amateurs trying to follow the broadcast: paspalum is grippy. Balls don’t roll out like they do on bentgrass or bermuda, which means driving distances on paper — particularly off the tee on rolling fairways — are several yards shorter than they would be at most US events. The course usually plays firm and fast otherwise, with cenote hazards (sinkhole-like water features) and Caribbean tradewinds adding complications late in the round.
Strategy-wise, this is not a bombs-and-wedges course. Mid- and short-iron play is the differentiator, particularly stopping the ball on grippy paspalum greens, and the players who tend to win here are precise wedge players rather than length specialists. That favors Korda’s wedge game (currently the best on tour by Strokes Gained: Approach data) and the Iwai twins’ tour-leading ball-striking proximity stats.
What Amateurs Can Learn From This Tournament
Tournaments on unusual turf are a useful reminder that course-fit matters more than amateurs typically credit. Three takeaways for your own game:
- Grippy turf rewards higher-spin wedge play. If you play coastal courses or any turf that plays firm but doesn’t release, leaning on a higher-spin wedge (often a 56° or 58° in soft-cover ball) helps you stop balls on the green. Our golf instruction library has detailed wedge fundamentals for amateurs trying to add stopping power.
- Ball flight matters in wind. Tradewinds at Mayakoba average 10–15 mph by mid-afternoon. Watch how the LPGA pros knock down their irons — typically a slightly steeper attack angle and a softer, lower-flighted shot. It’s a free shot-shaping lesson if you live in a windy region.
- Paspalum putts roll truer than they look. The grass is dense but tends to produce a smoother, more consistent roll than the broadcast graphics suggest. This is a course where putts that look like they “should have dropped” actually do — and a tournament-week reminder to commit to your line on shorter putts.
How To Watch
The Mexico Riviera Maya Open at Mayakoba is part of the 2026 LPGA’s expanded broadcast slate — every round is on Golf Channel and the LPGA’s streaming product. As we wrote in our deep dive on this LPGA season, this is the first year every event on tour gets full live coverage on television, with a 50 percent increase in camera deployment and upgraded slow-motion capabilities. For Korda’s swing, that’s a meaningful technical upgrade — she’s the most rhythmically distinctive driver on tour, and the new slow-mo angles will be worth watching.
Tee times begin at 8:00 AM ET on Thursday, April 30. The cut comes after Friday’s round, with the leaders teeing off Sunday afternoon for a likely Sunday evening finish.
Picks And What To Watch
- Korda is the obvious favorite. She’s coming off a five-stroke major win, has the best wedge game on tour, and has gone back-to-back twice in her career.
- Chizzy Iwai, the defending champion, knows the course better than anyone in the field and has the form to repeat — a top-three finish at the Chevron Championship suggests she’s hitting peak.
- Gaby Lopez is a sentimental sleeper as the Mexican home favorite, and her play in international events typically lifts on home turf.
- The cut line is going to be the day-by-day storyline. With many top names absent, every player in the field has a real chance to play four rounds, and that opens the door for a leaderboard surprise.
The Riviera Maya Open isn’t a major — but in an LPGA season already packed with story-driving events, it’s the kind of week where a surprise winner can rewrite the early-season narrative. With Korda playing, the bar for that surprise is high. Without her, the next tier of the tour gets a real shot. Either way, it’s a quietly compelling watch.
Source: LPGA.com tournament page; Olympics.com; Golf Channel; CBS Sports field reporting, April 26–28, 2026.
