Lydia Ko, of New Zealand, hits from the 11th tee during the first round of the LPGA Fortinet Founders Cup golf tournament, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Menlo Park, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

By The Canadian Press

Lydia Ko posts career-low 60 and only leads by 1 shot in LPGA’s Phoenix stop

Mar 26, 2026 | 6:52 PM

PHOENIX (AP) — Lydia Ko opened with four straight birdies and never stopping rolling Thursday until she closed out the best round of her LPGA Tour career with two more birdies for a 12-under 60 on a day of extreme low scoring in the Ford Championship.

Defending champion Hyo Joo Kim had a 61, making it the first time since the 2003 Kellogg-Keebler Classic two players were double digits under par in the opening round.

“I don’t think I’ve ever actually started a round with four birdies, so it was nice to take advantage of the good start and continue that on my back nine,” Ko said. “I think like as every golfer, when things go well you also think about the things that could go terribly wrong. I feel like I stayed patient and was rolling it really well.”

A moderate start to her 13th season came to life on the Cattail course at Whirlwind Golf Club when the 28-year-old Ko got into a rhythm after a rare putter change and started piling up the birdies.

She said the idea of 59 — Annika Sorenstam has the only sub-60 round in LPGA history, 25 years ago on a different course in Phoenix — entered her thinking when she birdied her 14th and 15th holes of the round after starting on No. 10.

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But she didn’t hit a 7-foot birdie putt firmly enough on the par-5 seventh. Ko finished with two more birdies for her career low round.

“That would have been nice to hole that one,” Ko said. “But who knows? Maybe if I holed that one I might not have holed the other two. You can’t think about ‘what if?’ Birdied some other ones that I didn’t expect, so kind of just evens out in that sense.”

It was the ninth round of 60 or lower on the LPGA, the most recent by Lucy Li at Pinnacle Country Cub in Arkansas in 2024.

Kim also started on No. 10 and shot 28 on the front nine, finishing birdie-eagle-birdie, including a hole-out from the fairway on the par-4 eighth hole.

Nelly Korda, who opened the year with a 54-hole win in Florida and was runner-up last week in California, holed out from the 18th fairway for eagle in the middle of her round and shot 63, one of her career best. She was three shots behind.

They all played in the morning and it was unlikely they would be caught by anyone in the afternoon, when temperatures were pushing 100 degrees (38 Celsius).

Jeeno Thitikul, the No. 1 player in women’s golf, was among those who had a late start. She finished with a 69, just as Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., and Maude-Aimée LeBlanc of Sherbrooke, Que., did.

Vancouver’s Leah John had a 70 on the day.

The big surprise for Ko was not so much her score but the equipment she uses. The Kiwi rarely tinkers with her putter but decided to switch to a different model earlier this week.

“It’s been a while since I have tried a different model,” Ko said of her Scotty Cameron 12 she used at Whirlwind. “It just rolled good. Went in the bag on Tuesday. … This has only been one round but it’s a good start. You know, really couldn’t have been any better.”

Ko was among six players from the morning wave who shot 65 or better. The course must not have seemed all that easy to Lexi Thompson, who plays a limited schedule and made her 2026 debut with a 75 that left her 15 shots behind.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

The Associated Press