After Lydia Ko’s opening birdie in the first round of the Ford Championship in Chandler, Ariz., her playing partner, Lottie Woadspotted a new addition to Ko’s bag: a Scotty Cameron Prototype T12 gunner. Ko isn’t one to switch gauges without extensive testing and in-depth discussion, so the newcomer was part of the conversation.
When Load called him out, Ko said something along the same lines: “I held the first one, so that was a good start.”
Ko then birdied her second hole of the day, the par-4 11th … and a third at the par-5 12th … and a fourth at the par-4 13th, a 40-footer that Ko called “the longest putt I’ve holed in a while.” Four birdies in her first four holes was something Ko — a 28-year-old with 23 LPGA wins and three majors — said she had never done before.
Then came two more birdies, on 16 and 17, and an opening 30 on the Cattail course at Whirlwind Golf Club. And two more birdies, on 1 and 2, to open her second nine. And yet two more birdies, at 5 and 6, to move to 10 under for her round.
And that’s when Ko hit: 59 was within reach, a score that has been recorded only once in LPGA history, by Annika Sorenstam a quarter of a century ago.
Ko knew what being locked up with three other birds would do for him, but he didn’t let the gravity of the moment weigh on him. Instead, she said, “It was more like, oh, it’s really nice to be in this position.” Ko added, “I think like any golfer, when things go well, you also think about the things that could go horribly wrong.”
It didn’t go too badly on the day, except for the par Ko made on the par-5 7th, which pretty much dashed her hopes of signing for golf’s most elusive number. From about 7 feet, Ko drove her birdie attempt just inside the right. “Honestly, I think I hit it too soft and it broke a little more than I thought it would,” she said. “It would be nice to open that one, but who knows, maybe if I killed him, I wouldn’t have opened the other two.”
Those other two came on the par-4 8th and par-4 9th. A birdie-birdie finish for the lowest score of her life.
“I felt very relaxed,” Ko said after her round, in which she hit nine fairways and 17 greens in regulation. “I think when you’re in the zone, you’re just focused and there’s not as much outside thought going in and out of your head. You’re just focused on what’s in front of you and then — and not worrying too much about the outcome of it.”
A hot shot helps too.
Ko said he had been experimenting with a new flat stick for a while, but when he got his hands on the new Scotty, it was love at first sight.
“It’s very unusual for me to change from my shot,” she said. But the change she made, from her Scotty Cameron P5 GSS Tour CS prototype, was a move that, she said, surprised her Scotty reps. According to GOLF’s Jack Hirshthe T12 prototype first appeared on the PGA Tour about a month ago and has “attracted a lot of interest.”
After her banner lap, Ko said of her player: “Maybe it’s a honeymoon phase, who knows. But you get an easy day like this anyway.”
The second act of the honeymoon starts on Friday, when Ko kicks off at 12:39pm local time.
