Lydia Ko Sets Record with a 60 at the Ford Championship
Phoenix – Lydia Ko started Thursday with four consecutive birdies and kept the pace to close out the best round of her career on the LPGA Tour, finishing with two more birdies for an impressive 60 under par at the Ford Championship. The defending champion, Hyo Joo Kim, also had an outstanding performance with a 61, marking the first time since the 2003 Kellogg-Keebler Classic that two players reached double digits under par in the opening round.The 28-year-old golfer found her rhythm on the Cattail course at the Whirlwind Golf Club, after an unusual change of putter, which allowed her to accumulate birdies. The possibility of a 59, a mark that only Annika Sorenstam has achieved in LPGA history, entered her mind after sinking birdies on holes 14 and 15, after starting on hole 10. However, a seven-foot putt for birdie on the par-5 seventh hole wasn’t firm enough. Ko finished with two more birdies, setting her career-low round.“I don’t think I’ve started a round with four birdies, so it was nice to take advantage of the good start and continue on my second nine,” Ko commented. “Like any golfer, when things are going well, you also think about what could go terribly wrong. I stayed patient and the game flowed very well.”
Lydia Ko
This was the ninth round of 60 or less on the LPGA, the most recent by Lucy Li at the Pinnacle Country Club in Arkansas in 2024. Kim, who also started on the 10th hole, had a 28 on the first nine holes, finishing with birdie-eagle-birdie, including a hole-out from the fairway on the 8th hole, a par 4. Nelly Korda, who started the year with a victory in Florida and was runner-up last week in California, achieved a hole-out from the fairway of the 18th hole for an eagle in the middle of her round and scored a 63, one of the best of her career. Korda finished three strokes behind. All the players mentioned competed in the morning, and it was unlikely that they would be surpassed by those who played in the afternoon, where temperatures reached 38 degrees Celsius. Jeeno Thitikul, the number 1 in women’s golf, was among those who started later, and was only 2 under par when reaching the 9th hole. The biggest surprise for Ko wasn’t so much her score as the equipment she used. The golfer rarely modifies her putter, but decided to switch to a different model earlier in the week.“It would have been nice to sink that,” Ko said. “But, who knows? Maybe if I had sunk that, I wouldn’t have sunk the other two. You can’t think about ‘what if.’ I made birdies on other holes that I didn’t expect, so it kind of balances out.”
Lydia Ko
Ko was one of the six players in the first group to achieve 65 strokes or less. The course didn’t seem so easy for Lexi Thompson, who plays a limited schedule and made her debut in 2026 with a 75, finishing 15 strokes behind.“I hadn’t tried a different model in a while,” Ko said about her Scotty Cameron 12 that she used at Whirlwind. “It just rolled well. It went in the bag on Tuesday… This is just one game, but it’s a good start. It really couldn’t have been better.”
Lydia Ko
