Four birdies in her final eight holes turned Leona Maguire’s day around, but despite carding a 68, she finds herself eight shots off the lead after Lydia Ko carded the lowest round of her LPGA career.
Maguire was among the late starters on day one of the Ford Championship at Whirlwind Golf Club in Phoenix, and by the time her round was only a few holes old, the bar had already been set at 12-under-par, and she remained 12 back after eight holes before making her first birdie of the day on the 18th – her ninth.
She gave that shot back on the next, but the regrouped to pick up birdies on two, three, five and eight to end the day tied for 34th at -4.
Lauren Walsh was also in the afternoon wave, and made the turn at level-par after parring each of her opening nine.
She traded a bogey on 10 with a birdie on 12, but made a double bogey-six on the par-4 14th. She responded by birdieing the par-3 next, then eagled the par-5 17th – her first eagle on the LPGA Tour – to claw her way to one-under and ended the day sharing 92nd, two shots outside the provisional cut mark.
Ko opened with four straight birdies and never stopping rolling until she closed out the best round of her LPGA Tour career with two more birdies to move to -12, but it only gives her a one-stroke advantage at the top.
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 when the 28-year-old 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.
But she didn’t hit a seven-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 was only 2 under at the turn.
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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