After Lydia Ko’s opening birdie in the first round of the Ford Championship in Chandler, Ariz., her playing partner, Lottie Woad, spotted a new addition to Ko’s bag: a Scotty Cameron T12 prototype putter. Ko’s not one to swap out putters without extensive testing and deep deliberation so the newcomer was a conversation piece.
When Woad called it out, Ko said something along the lines of, “I holed the first one, so it was a good start.”
Then Ko holed the second one, on her second hole of the day, the par-4 11th … and a third one on the par-5 12th … and a fourth one on 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 major titles — said she’d 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, at 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 it hit Ko: 59 was within reach, a score that has been recorded just once in LPGA history, by Annika Sorenstam a quarter century ago.
Ko knew what closing with three more birdies would secure her, but she didn’t let the gravity of the moment weigh on her. Instead, she said, “It was just more like, oh, it’s really cool to be in this position.” Ko added, “I think like as every golfer, when things go well you also think about the things that could go terribly wrong.”
Not much went wrong on this day, unless you count the par Ko made on the par-5 7th, which more or less derailed her hopes of signing for golf’s most elusive number. From about 7 feet, Ko aimed her birdie try inside right. “Honestly, I think I hit it a touch too soft and it broke a little bit more than I thought,” she said. “That would’ve been nice to hole that one, but who knows, maybe if I holed that one I might not have holed 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 lifetime.
“I felt very calm,” 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 is not as many external thoughts going in and out of your head. You’re just focused on what shot you have in front of you and then — and not get too carried away about the outcome of it.”
A hot putter helps, too.
Ko said it had been a while since she experimented with a new flatstick, but when she got her hands on the new Scotty, it was love at first roll.
“It’s very unusual for me to change out of my putter,” she said. But change she did, out of her Scotty Cameron P5 GSS Tour CS prototype, a move that, she said, surprised her Scotty reps. According to GOLF’s Jack Hirsh, the T12 prototype first surfaced on the PGA Tour about a month ago and has been “drawing a lot of interest.”
After her banner round, Ko said of her putter, “Maybe it’s a honeymoon phase, who knows. But you take an easy day like this on any occasion.”
The second act of the honeymoon starts Friday, when Ko tees off at 12:39 p.m. local time.
