Lydia Ko – shares the lead in a tournament she won two years ago – file image USGA

New Zealand’s Lydia Ko and England’s LPGA Tour second-season player, Lottie Woad, share the halfway lead at the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions at the Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando.

Ko, who won this tournament two years ago, added a second round of 67 to her opening 69 to be tied at the top at 8 under par, the leaders one ahead of Korean Amy Yang and Japan’s Nasa Hataoka in a foreign-dominated leaderboard where only one player in the top ten is American.

Ko was pleasantly surprised at how well she had played over the opening 36 holes.

“I surprised myself a little bit yesterday. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I saw a lot of good and I think I just kind of carried on that momentum to today.

“I think it was really important to capitalize on how nice the weather we had these last couple days because I think everybody is expecting a cold front to come in this weekend.

“So, yeah, I think I’m in a good position leading up to some tough golf ahead.”

Ko is very much aware of the quality of player she shares the lead with.

“Yeah, she’s (Woad) obviously a very impressive player. The way she came on Tour through the LEAP program and winning the Irish Open and then almost winning in Evian and then winning the Scottish Open, she kind of came on with a bang.

She was obviously a player that I had known and seen before she was part of the LPGA. It’s no surprise that she’s playing great golf here.

“Outside of just her talent, she seems like a very hard worker, and she’s grinding out there before and after play. I think all of that time and effort really shows in the results.

“It’s been very impressive to see. I personally didn’t know Lottie very well, but in the times I’ve gotten to talk to her she’s very sweet and very funny.

“I enjoy her company. I’m not really sure how the pairings will be for tomorrow, but it will be fun to play alongside her.”

Ko is the only Australasian in the field, others who would have been eligible for the event, preferring to wait until the Asian swing in mid-February to get their season underway.

Leaderboard

 

 

Jason Day with one of his two Torrey Pines trophies – image Getty / PGA Tour

Four Australians will line up at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines this week, Jason Day, Adam Scott, Cam Davis and Karl Vilips taking to the North and South Courses at the public facility near San Diego.

Coming off his impressive performance when runner-up to Scottie Scheffler last week in La Quinta, which saw Day jump nearly 30 places in the world ranking to 33^rd and as now the leading Australasian, Day plays a venue at which he has enjoyed considerable success, including two wins, a 2^nd, and a 3^rd place in 16 previous starts.

Day‘s victories in the event came in his great season of 2015, during which he became world number one and again in 2018, and given his great final round last week and his apparent liking for the Torrey Pines venue, it will be interesting to see if the progress he has made with his game of late continues.

Interestingly, Scott has played the event just twice, as he has typically started the season later, but with a runner-up finish to Justin Rose in 2019 and a 10th-place finish in 2021 in those two starts, he is another who seems to enjoy the US Open venue.

Scott had a solid week in La Quinta when 24th following a 40^th place at the Sony Open, so his game is in reasonable shape ahead of this week’s task.

Cam Davis has battled with his game of late, with not one top 30 finish in his last 13 starts, including disappointing weeks at the Australian PGA and Open. With no finishes inside the top 30 in six starts in this event, he has a difficult task to get things heading back in the right direction.

Karl Vilips is in his second PGA Tour season, having won in his rookie season, and gets the chance to play the event for the first time, but he did play well last week and has a bit of confidence in what will be the second start of the season for the former West Australian resident.

Harris English and Matthew Pavon are the two most recent winners of the Farmers Insurance Open.

Tee Times

Jordan Doull wins second PGA Tour of Australasia title – image PGA of Australia

26-year-old West Australian Jordan Doull twice recovered from double bogeys during today’s final round of the Webex Players Series Victoria, and would eventually win his second PGA Tour title, surviving a four-hole playoff to defeat last week’s Vic Open Champion Cameron John.

The pair were locked in a battle throughout the final round at the Rosebud Country Club after Doull had begun the day two ahead of John.

Doull, who twelve months ago won another playoff when successful against Jack Buchanan at the Webex Series event in Perth, shared the lead at 13 under with John after making the turn after an outward nine of 36.

Doull moved ahead through 13 holes, but his chances took a blow when he double bogeyed the 17^th after taking a two-shot lead through 16.

Both players were tied playing the 72nd hole, but when Doull holed a 10-footer to keep the title alive, they headed to the first extra hole, which they would play over four times before John missed a 3-footer, giving Doull the title.

Surprisingly, as has become a recent trend, the hole was not recut, and, instead, exactly the same hole location was used in five times playing the hole on day four. It seems a no-brainer for the modern and more recent trend of cutting a new hole after a couple of times playing the playoff hole but not used on this occasion.

It keeps the crowd around the same location but offers the opportunity for a new look to a hole in which a level of sameness has developed.

Either way, Doull, who spent five years at a university in the USA, has rebounded after missing five of his previous seven cuts on the PGA Tour of Australasia.

Cameron John now has the lead on the PGA Tour of Australasia’s Order of Merit, his runner-up finish moving him past long-time leader Christopher Wood, who could only finish 35^th this week.

Doull’s win moves him to 14^th place on the Order of Merit.

Brilliant British-born but now Gold Coast citizen, Billy Dowling, still an amateur, finished tied for 3^rd one shot from the playoff, sharing that position with Sydney’s Austin Bautista, who won earlier in the season in Kalgoorlie.

The leading women were Victorian Jazy Roberts and Coffs Harbour’s Amelia Mehmet Grohn, who finished in a share of 26th, playing from forward tees but for the same prizemoney.

Final Result

Min Woo Lee – file photo courtesy of Golf Australia

Min Woo Lee has started the 2026 playing season in the best possible fashion with an opening round of 62 to share the lead at the American Express Championship in La Quinta, California.

Lee, whose last tournament was when finishing 14^th at the Australian Open in early December, was bogey-free in producing nines of 31 and 31 to share the lead with American Pierceson Coody in an event played over three different courses before returning to the Pete Dye Stadium Course for the final round on Sunday.

“Yeah, there was a little bit of anxiousness starting out,” said Lee, referring to starting the year. “The first round of the year, a bit of a swing, not change, but something that we’ve been working on in the off-season.

“I changed my grip only like a week and a half ago, so it was a very, it’s good that you see results straight away. But that was pretty much the anxiousness that I had. I didn’t know how it would go on the greens, and it turned out well.

“So you didn’t really know how it was going to go. But, yeah, started off really nice. Yeah, kept it going. It was a great day to make some birdies. Probably the stillest day I’ve ever played golf in. So the numbers were exactly, you know, what you wanted, and you just execute ’em. But it was a really fun day.”

When asked how a possible suggestion of date changes and rescheduling on the PGA Tour might impact this event in the future, Lee responded;

“I love this tournament. It’s a great place to start the year. Great courses and lots of fun, and make some birdies. So it is nice to have in the schedule, because the Signature Events are very hard and major like, so it is nice to be able to hit it in the rough and actually hit it on the green. So I would love it to be in the schedule, and I would love it to, yeah, just be there next year and years coming.”

Earlier in the week, Lee played a practice round with Jason Day in a recorded piece for Day’s YouTube channel, and despite a solid debut in the event when 21^st in 2024, Lee has clearly benefited from the advice Day gave him on Monday.

Day, too, was brilliant on day one, finishing strongly for a round of 63 on the Stadium Course to be in a share of 3^rd place and just one off the lead with, amongst others, Scottie Scheffler.

Day finished 3^rd in this event last year behind the winner Sepp Straka.

Leaderboard

Daniel Hillier – file image courtesy of Photosport NZ / NZ Open 

New Zealand’s Daniel Hillier staged a remarkable final round of 65 (beaten by only one golfer) to almost snatch the Dubai Invitational at the Dubai Creek Resort after beginning the final round five shots behind the eventual winner, Nacho Elvira of Spain.

Hillier would finish in the runner-up position and earn €258,400, increasing his already significant take from events in the UAE following his runner-up finish in Dubai last year and a 5^th place in Abu Dhabi.

When he finished his round nearly an hour before the final group of Elvira and South Africa’s Dylan Fritelli, Hillier was perhaps only hoping for the chance to finish in a share of second place, especially with the likes of Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy still with a few holes to play.

A lengthy birdie putt at the 15^th had given Hillier a share of the lead with McIlroy and Elvira with Lowry and Marcus Armitage another shot back, but with those players having holes to play, surely someone would finish strongly to grab the lead.

Lowry appeared to have stolen a march on the field when he moved one ahead with a birdie at the 15th. It would be the Irishman, however, who gave up a one-shot lead at the 72^nd hole when he found the greenside bunker with his approach, blasted across the green and into a penalty area, double bogeyed and at that point Hillier and Elvira were left in the lead at 9 under.

Within a few minutes, the 38-year-old Elvira had taken the lead with a birdie at the 17^th, and he managed to safely negotiate the potentially dangerous 18^th to secure his third DP World Tour title.

Hillier has become one of the real forces amongst the DP World Tour regulars since joining the tour in 2023, finishing 18^th on the money list last year, and although he so nearly gained access to the PGA Tour via the DP World Tour money list, he is already showing that another year in Europe will be an even more successful one.

Hillier has finished inside the top 6 in four of his last five DP World Tour starts.

Hillier suggested after his round that a round of golf with fellow countryman Ryan Fox earlier in the week allowed him a different mindset this week, and it so nearly paid off in the best possible way.

“To be honest, at the start of the week I was chatting with Foxy,” said Hillier. “We had a couple of nine-hole matches, and he said, Why can’t you be like this when you’re playing in a tournament?

“Yeah, just pretend I was playing a little nine-hole match against the golf course, and yeah, basically taking it one shot at a time. Yeah, for the most part, happy days.”

Fox finished 27^th in the 60-man field.

The DP World Tour continues in Dubai with this week’s Dubai Desert Classic, where Hillier and Fox will be joined by fellow Australasians Kazuma Kobori, Elvis Smylie, Jason Scrivener, and David Micheluzzi.

Results