NORTON, Mass.: Allizen Corpuz kept her patience while spinning her wheels for so much of the year and finally saw some good results Thursday when she opened the FM Championship with a 7-under 65 to share the first-round lead with Sei Young Kim and fast-closing Jodi Ewart Shadoff.
Corpuz had four birdies on her last six holes at the TPC Boston, holing a 10-foot birdie putt on the par-4 ninth to catch Kim, who played in calmer conditions in the morning.
Shadoff was the last to finish, and she did so in style with four straight birdies.
“Holed a lot of putts outside 20 feet, so that definitely helps. And then the last four just good ball striking and some really nice putts,” Ewart Shadoff said.
Nelly Korda switched putters to more of a blade and saw it pay off with seven birdies in a round of 67 in her debut on the TPC Boston course that previously hosted one of the four PGA Tour postseason events.
Corpuz has only one LPGA victory and it was a big one — the US Women’s Open at Pebble Beach two years ago. She had a pair of top 10s early in the year, including a third in the Ford Championship in Phoenix in late March. That was her last top 10.
“Just feel like golf is such a funny game,” Corpuz said. “Even if it hasn’t been the results that I wanted to see, it’s just felt really, really close all season. It was a good start to the season and kind of just feel like things are starting to turn the corner a bit.”
Kim played in the morning when the weather was slightly cooler and she wondered if that would make the course play longer with the golf ball not flying as much. But she birdied three of the par 5s until having to settle for a par on the closing hole that has a large ditch in front of the green and big swales around it.
That’s what tripped up Jeeno Thitikul of Thailand in her second week since returning to No. 1 in the women’s world ranking. She blasted a tee shot down the right side, but her approach on the par-5 18th missed left and went down that steep slope. Her first pitch came up short and rolled back to her feet, and the Thai took a bogey for a 69.
Two stories have been in play all year on the LPGA — 22 consecutive tournaments to start the year with different winners at each one, and Korda not winning any of them. Korda is coming off a seven-win 2024 and only two weeks ago lost the No. 1 ranking to Thitikul.
Her 67 left her in a log jam of players tied for third that included Women’s PGA champion Minjee Lee, Celine Boutier, Andrea Lee and Gurleen Kaur, the LPGA rookie who had to go through Monday qualifying to get into the field.
Korda said the Florida courses where she lives aren’t in the best shape in the hot summer, so she wasn’t sure what she thought of the putter at home. But she took it to Canada, liked how it felt and kept it in the bag. It’s a similar model to the one she was using last year.
“Just something new,” Korda said, who also went with a different grip on the putter. “I knew I had so much success with that kind of putter and felt confident with it. Just needed to feel something different.”
