Jeeno Thitikul’s “Dance in the Rain” Philosophy May Be Exactly What Women’s Golf Needs Right Now

I’ve been around professional golf long enough to recognize when a player has fundamentally shifted their relationship with pressure. After 35 years covering this tour—and having spent time in the bag with Tom Lehman during his peak years—I can tell you: most players never make that leap. Jeeno Thitikul just might be different.

What struck me most about her comments this week at the HSBC Women’s World Championship wasn’t her sarcasm about being reminded of her four top-10 finishes here. It was the clarity behind it. When she deadpanned, “Thanks for the pressure,” and followed with “No worries”—she wasn’t deflecting. She was signaling a maturity that typically takes players a decade to develop, if they develop it at all.

The Mantra That Changes Everything

At 23 years old, Thitikul has already won eight LPGA events, including last week’s Honda LPGA Thailand—her first victory on home soil, which came with all the emotional weight you’d expect. She’s ranked world No. 1. She’s finished runner-up in a major. By any measure, she’s accomplished more than 99 percent of professional golfers ever will.

Yet here’s what fascinates me: she’s consciously chosen a four-word mantra to manage it all. “Dance in the rain,” she calls it.

“The nerves is always going to be there, but you have to beat the nerves. Sometime you get more worried about the future, about what next shot I’m going to do. But I told myself, this is the time that you need joy with it, need joy with excitement, need joy with the nervous moments.”

I’ve covered 15 Masters Tournaments. I’ve sat with players in the locker room after they’ve won majors and after they’ve collapsed on Sunday. The ones who last—the ones who actually maintain excellence over decades—aren’t the ones who eliminate pressure. They’re the ones who learn to coexist with it, even enjoy it.

Thitikul seems to understand this already. That’s unusual. That’s potentially dangerous for her competitors.

The Major Championship Question (And Why She’s Not Panicking)

Let’s address the elephant: Thitikul hasn’t won a major yet. Her best finish is a runner-up at last year’s Evian Championship. In tour discourse, this has become the standard talking point—the thing commentators mention first, as if it’s a glaring weakness rather than simply a matter of timing and luck.

Her response? Remarkably zen for someone in her position:

“Obviously when the pressure moment, when the nervous moment coming, you’re not going to get it every time. You have 10 times, you’re not going to get it 10 times. You’re obviously going to fall for sure. But I think the times that you fall, then you learn what the next time you’re going to do. But if you fall, that’s fine. Because you have the 11th time coming again.”

This is what separates prospects from champions. She’s not viewing a major championship as a referendum on her career. She’s viewing it as one of many opportunities—five this year, five next year, and so on. That’s the kind of patient, process-oriented thinking that eventually produces winners.

I’ve watched players crumble under the weight of “I haven’t won a major yet.” I’ve also watched players—Ernie Els, for instance—remain calm and composed until the moment arrived. Thitikul’s approach mirrors that latter philosophy far more closely than the former.

Thailand Victory Reveals Hidden Strength

What impressed me most about her Honda LPGA Thailand win, however, had nothing to do with iron play or driving accuracy. It had to do with her admission that she played below her personal standard and won anyway.

“I think for the goals for the majors, for whatever, I think that’s kind of always going to be with me. That obviously if I’m not a 100 percent of my game, but I have to show out there and be able to bounce back.”

Any professional can tell you that understanding this is different from executing it. Thitikul shot 71-69-68-65 for 273 (-15) to win by one stroke. Her iron play, by her own admission, wasn’t pristine. Yet she won. That’s not luck—that’s resilience. That’s the ability to manage a golf course and your own expectations simultaneously.

In my experience, players who can win without their best stuff consistently tend to accumulate major championships. They learn that perfection is the enemy of excellence.

World No. 1: A Perspective Shift

Perhaps most telling is how Thitikul’s approach to being ranked world No. 1 has evolved. She held the ranking briefly in 2022, at age 19, and admits she put tremendous pressure on herself then. This time around, she’s different.

“It’s definitely different to my perspective of seeing things,” she said. “At that time, I was so young, and then I just put a lot of pressure on myself… Right now, when I have a bad shot, it’s OK, you have another one.”

Having covered the tour for over three decades, I’ve seen this transition numerous times—and most players don’t make it successfully. Some buckle under the weight of expectations and never recover their form. Thitikul’s willingness to acknowledge her growth and adjust her mentality suggests she’s working from a different blueprint entirely.

What This Means for Women’s Golf

Beyond Thitikul’s individual prospects, her philosophy is refreshing for the sport itself. Women’s professional golf has a tendency to build narratives around pressure—the pressure to win majors, the pressure to be “the next big thing,” the pressure to carry an entire sport on your shoulders.

Thitikul’s approach suggests you can acknowledge those pressures without being consumed by them. You can “dance in the rain” instead of waiting for perfect weather.

That’s not just good philosophy. It’s good golf. And at 23, with eight LPGA wins and a clear-eyed understanding of her own development, she may be just getting started.