Jeeno Thitikul Crowned Tatler Thailand’s Most Influential Person 2025: The 22-Year-Old Golfer Who Beat the Prime Minister, K-Pop Idols, and Is Accidentally Stealing an Entire Generation of Southeast Asian Talent
Tatler Thailand dropped its annual Most Influential list this week and the entire region lost its mind. Number one was not the sitting prime minister, not a billionaire tycoon, not even the hottest K-pop act touring Asia. It was 22-year-old golfer Atthaya “Jeeno” Thitikul.
The magazine called her “the quiet earthquake” and placed her above every politician, actor, and singer in the kingdom. In a country that worships hierarchy, seeing a young female athlete outrank the nation’s most powerful figures felt like watching gravity reverse itself overnight.
Jeeno had just returned from Florida, where she successfully defended the CME Group Tour Championship with a ridiculous 26-under-par total. The victory handed her a second consecutive $4 million check and cemented her as the 2025 LPGA Player of the Year and Vare Trophy winner.
Her season statistics read like fiction: three LPGA wins, the lowest scoring average in tour history (68.68), and the fastest ascent past $17 million in career earnings ever recorded. She reclaimed world No. 1 in August and never looked back.
But money and trophies are only half the story. The truly frightening part, the part that has sports ministers across Southeast Asia waking up in cold sweats, is what Jeeno is doing to an entire generation of little girls without even trying.
In the Philippines, former junior tennis No. 1 Rianne Malixi, 14, sold family farmland to move to Bradenton, Florida, after declaring, “Jeeno showed me golf is the future.” Her parents now call it the best investment they ever made.
Vietnam’s top-ranked U16 tennis player quit cold in September. Her coach cried on national television: “She said badminton is for medals, but golf is for millions. Jeeno made her believe she could be the next Thai billionaire.”
Indonesia’s most promising badminton prospect, once tipped for 2028 Olympics, now spends six hours a day on the driving range. Her father sold his motorbike taxi to buy her a $3,000 driver. “Jeeno proved Asian girls can dominate a white sport,” he shrugged.
Even in Singapore, where education is sacred, parents are pulling daughters out of elite schools to homeschool them around golf schedules. One mother told Straits Times, “Harvard is fine, but Jeeno has $17 million at 22. Math is math.”
Thailand wasted no time capitalizing. The government tripled junior golf funding in 2025. Ten new “Jeeno Academies” opened from Chiang Mai to Phuket, offering full scholarships to any girl who can break 90 by age twelve.
Corporate sponsors that once chased tennis and badminton prodigies now ignore them completely. A Bangkok advertising executive admitted off-record: “We used to sign the national junior tennis champion for $10,000 a year. Now we won’t touch her unless she switches to golf.”
Coaches across the region are sounding alarms. Philippine Tennis Association president reported a 40 % drop in female junior enrollment since Jeeno’s CME victory. “We are losing an entire generation to one girl’s smile on television,” he said.
The ten most dramatic cases have already become legend. An 11-year-old from a Cebu fishing village sold her family’s boat. A 13-year-old from Hanoi pawned her grandmother’s gold bracelet for lessons. A 15-year-old from Surabaya ran away from home with only her clubs.
All ten repeat the same sentence in interviews: “I want to make my country proud the way Jeeno makes Thailand proud.” Their bedrooms are wallpapered with Jeeno posters; their phone lock screens show her lifting the CME globe for the second time.
Tatler’s editor defended the controversial ranking: “Influence is not about political power today. It is about who changes tomorrow. Jeeno has already shifted the dreams of millions of girls who never believed a Southeast Asian woman could rule a global sport.”
Jeeno herself seems almost embarrassed by the chaos she caused. At the Tatler gala she wore a simple white dress and spent most of the night hiding behind her mother. When asked about the regional exodus to golf, she whispered, “I just play. I hope they keep studying too.”
But the machine is already in motion. Thailand’s pipeline now stretches from kindergarten talent ID programs to guaranteed LPGA cards. Analysts predict that by 2032 the country could have more players inside the world top 100 than the United States had in the early 2000s.
Neighboring federations have launched desperate counter-campaigns. Billboards in Manila show tennis legends with the slogan “Stay With Us – Gold Medals Still Matter.” In Jakarta, badminton coaches offer free rackets to any girl who promises not to switch sports.
None of it is working. Every week another prodigy posts a tearful goodbye video to her old racket and hello to a new set of irons. The hashtag #NextJeeno has been used by over 80,000 accounts across TikTok and Instagram in the past month alone.
As Jeeno prepares for the 2026 major season (where she is the betting favorite for every event), she carries a burden heavier burden than any trophy. She has become the accidental architect of the biggest youth sports migration Asia has ever seen.
Whether this is the greatest empowerment story in regional sports history or the most reckless talent drain remains to be seen.
What is certain is that one quiet girl from Pathum Thani, who picked up a golf club instead of a tennis racket at age six, has quietly redrawn the map of Southeast Asian dreams.
And the rest of the region can only watch, half in awe and half in terror, as their daughters pack their bags and head toward the fairways Jeeno made famous.
