ROGERS, Arkansas: Sung Hyun Park has said one of her goals this season on the LPGA Tour is to win the Rookie of the Year award.
The South Korean might add the title of “winner” to her resume well before any season-ending awards, particularly after opening the NW Arkansas Championship with an 8-under 63 on Friday.
Park finished with nine birdies on her way to nearly matching the course record of 62, needing only 24 putts to take a two-shot lead over Mel Reid, Ally McDonald and So Yeon Ryu.
“My play was best with the putter today, very good,” Park said.
Reid also reached as low as 8 under midway through her round, making a hole-in-one on the par-3 11th. She used a 9-iron on the 135-yard hole, hitting it just past the flag before it spun back and rolled into the hole.
“As soon as I hit it, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s got a chance,’” Reid said.
Local favorite Stacy Lewis and 56-year-old Juli Inkster were at 66 along with Felicity Johnson, Moriya Jutanugarn, and Katherine Kirk. Defending champion and second-ranked Lydia Ko opened with a 70
The 34-year-old Park won seven times and was the top earner last year on the Korean LPGA tour, but she also played in seven LPGA Tour events with an eye on making the move to the US. She has finished in the top 10 four times this year, nine times in her 19 total LPGA Tour appearances.
All that is lacking to solidify her rapid rise into the ranks of the LPGA’s elite is a victory, possibly this weekend in advance of next week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
“I wasn’t really surprised to see how well (Park) is (playing),” fellow South Korean Ryu said. “Even last year, she played a few LPGA tournaments as a non-member, but she would finish top-five, top-10. I think she is a really great golfer, and it’s a matter of how comfortable she is on the tour.”
Park played in the humid and overcast conditions during the morning at Pinnacle Country Club, avoiding a 46-minute weather delay and gusty conditions during the afternoon.
She entered the tournament fourth in the LPGA Tour in driving distance, and she lived up to that Friday, booming 290-yard drives on the 7,001-yard course.
Ryu was the only player in the afternoon to come within two shots of Park’s morning round, capping her round by reaching the par-5 18th in two and two-putting for her sixth birdie and a bogey-free round.
“I had two weeks off and was really fresh to play,” Ryu said. “I think was everything was really smooth from start to end, and it feels really great to be back.”
Former world No. 1 Ai Miyazato shot a 72 in her first round in the US after announcing last month that she plans to retire at the end of the season.
Michelle Wie opened with a 68.
Park shoots 63 to take two-shot lead at LPGA Tour event
Park shoots 63 to take two-shot lead at LPGA Tour event
Siniakova ends Andreeva Indian Wells defense in third round
- Siniakova, a former doubles number one, will face either Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina or American Ashlyn Krueger for a place in the quarter-finals
INDIAN WELLS, United States: Unseeded Katerina Siniakova ended a frustrated Mirra Andreeva’s Indian Wells title defense on Monday, rallying for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over the eighth-ranked Russian.
The 18-year-old Andreeva had opened her repeat bid with an imperious 6-0, 6-0 demolition of Solana Sierra.
But she was in trouble early and often against 44th-ranked Siniakova in a rollercoaster contest that featured seven service breaks for each player and 43 break chances between them.
When she sailed a swinging volley long to surrender the second set, Andreeva threw her racquet in disgust.
She regrouped to break Siniakova for a 3-2 lead in the third, but Siniakova won the next four games.
The Czech saved a pair of break points in the final game before sealing the match with a shot that struck the net cord and dribbled over as Andreeva could only watch, disappointment sparking another outburst from the Russian as she departed the court.
Siniakova, a former doubles number one, will face either Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina or American Ashlyn Krueger for a place in the quarter-finals.
In other early matches, fifth-seeded American Jessica Pegula shook off a slow start to beat Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Pegula, coming off her fourth career WTA 1000 title at Dubai last month, fired 11 aces with just one double fault as she rallied for the win.
“I think today I had to kind of snap myself back and kind of lock in to not let that get away from me,” said Pegula, who said she was in danger of letting negativity and frustration get the better of her.
“I didn’t think I was playing bad. It was just letting a couple chances, couple breaks here and there (get away), maybe a couple shots that I could have been more aggressive on.”
Later on Stadium Court, world number two Iga Swiatek took on Greece’s Maria Sakkari — the woman she beat in the Indian Wells finals in 2022 and 2024.
Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina, who lifted the Indian wells Trophy in 2023, played Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk in the final match of the night.
