The first competitive round on a new course is a unique experience, even for seasoned professional golfers, and today, on the first day of competition at the 2026 LPGA Founders Cup at Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club in Menlo Park, the ladies of the LPGA got their first taste of this classic Jack Fleming layout for real.
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| Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim leads after the first round of the 2026 LPGA Founders Cup with a 9-under 63 (Photo Credit LPGA/Getty) |
Elevation changes are the name of the game on this 6,542-yard layout. Tucked into a hilly pocket of the Sharon Heights neighborhood in tony Menlo Park, CA, just up the road from the densest concentration of venture capital firms in the world, the course sits on 130 or so acres wrapped around two pockets of prime Bay Area residential property. If they gave names to the holes on this course the 407-yard par-4 first hole could easily be tagged “Black Diamond” for the 90-foot drop from tee to green; the 535-yard 10th hole has a maximum drop of 76 feet, with a long stretch of 25% slope mid-fairway, and similar profiles are found on the parallel sixth and 16th holes.
Bottom line: this course is a tough walk, and the caddies are really going to be earning their wages this week. On the plus side, the 18th hole, with a net rise of a little more than 60 feet over its 473-yard length, provides a sweeping end-of-round view as it rises back up to the upper level of the property, backdropped by the handsome Sharon Heights G&CC club house.
As an outdoor game, golf is always affected by the weather. A month ago there was snow on the Bay Area hills as low as 1200 feet above sea level; now, in the final three days of the winter of 2025–2026 the San Francisco Bay Area, along with most of the western United States, is experiencing a record-setting heat wave. This week temps in the area hit the low to mid 90s, with 86ºF to 88ºF highs here at the course.
Early rounds today, with temperatures in the low 70s, saw seven players go out with scores of from five to three under par on both the front and back sides – but don’t think that this course is a pushover; scores as high as +7 were out there, too. As the day wore on the mercury rose, peaking at 88ºF around the time the TV coverage window opened at 3:00 PM.
Defending champion and Bay Area native Yealimi Noh, playing with current world #2 Nelly Korda and Japan’s Chisota Iwai, started her round at 12:48 p.m., teeing off at #1 just as the heat was tipping up into the low 80s. It was tolerable in the shade and when the occasional light breeze would waft by, but by the time the group got to the 9th green – a climb of 70+ feet with a long stretch of 10–12% grade – the temperature was 88ºF. The front nine here at Sharon Heights encompasses the greatest change in elevation on the course; the low point, in the 5th fairway about 100 yards short of the green, is 130 feet lower than the first tee.
Noh had her share of minor issues on the front nine, but was able to scramble her way out trouble – a tough lie in wood-chip landscaping short and right of the 5th green, and a deep lie in the rough left of the 7th fairway – to put together a clean-card front nine 36. She then opened her back nine with a birdie 4 on the 535-yard par-5 10th hole, a drop-away dogleg-right that turns hard about 230 yards from the tee, challenging players to hit a late-turning fade to catch the slope and run, bringing the possibility of a wedge or short-iron approach – and eagle – into play.
Unfortunately for Noh’s chances for a repeat victory, the birdie on #10 and a closing birdie on #18 bookended a string of three double-bogeys and a bogey on holes 12 through 15 and another bogey on 17, resulting in a final score of seven-over 79 which dropped her dozens of places down the leaderboard to a T140 finish for the first round. It will be a tough nut for the defending champion to crack to climb out of this hole and make it to the weekend.
Among other players with connections to, or history in, the Bay Area, only Minjee Lee, who won the 2012 USGA Girls’ Junior Championship at Lake Merced Golf Club, and six years later battled Lydia Ko down the stretch in the Mediheal Championship on the same course (only to lose by a shot), made a strong showing, finishing the day today T8 with a 4-under 68.
Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim came out of the mix as the first-round leader, cementing her final-round 9-under 63 with a scorching birdie-eagle finish on holes 17 & 18. Dongeun Lee, also of Korea, tied down second place with a 7-under 65, and Polly Mack, a native of Berlin, Germany who played college golf at UNLV and Alabama, finished the day tied for third with Korea’s Jin Hee Im at 6-under.
In the final analysis, heat may have been a factor in the scoring today, as seven of the top 11 at the end of the day were players who started in the morning wave. Whether it was player fatigue from the heat or a change in conditions as the turf dried due to heat and low humidity there isn’t enough information to determine, but it will be worth watching the stats tomorrow, when the start times are switched, to see how this effect plays out.
The good news is that temperatures are forecast to be 10 to 12 degrees lower on the weekend for the players who survive these two first hot days to make the cut.
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