A psycho scorecard and the cut-line dance: Friday at the Founders Cup

When spring rolled in this morning at 7:46 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, three groups of golfers had already teed off from both the 1st and 10th tee boxes at Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club. It’s Friday, sometimes referred to as “moving day” – the day in a golf tournament when things get real, and the cut line on the scoreboard is watched with eagle eyes by players, caddies, friends, family, and fans.

If a player had a good day on Thursday, they want to keep it going; if not, they are grittily determined to step up their game and improve their position and climb higher in the standings – especially if their name is sitting below that dreaded line at tee time.

The Cut-line Dance/Moving Day

When play opened this morning six players with Bay Area connections were at or above the cut line: Minjee Lee (winner of the 2012 USGA Girls’ Junior Amateur at Lake Merced Golf Club) at -4; Stanford alumna Aline Krauter at -2; Lydia Ko (part-time SF resident and 3-time winner of the former LPGA event at Lake Merced) and Stanford alumnae Albane Valenzuela and Rose Zhang at -1; Lucy Li of Redwood Shores and Natasha Oon (LPGA rookie and San Jose State alumna) at even par.

After sitting at even par all morning, in the early afternoon the cut line moved to 1-under, dropping Bay Area native Lucy Li and a slipping Aline Krauter from the weekend field, and putting Lydia Ko in a precarious position. An hour or so later the cut line was back to even par; this is the cut-line dance that drives players – and golf writers who are pre-positioning their stories – crazy.

By the end of the day, though, things had changed a bit, and not everyone went home happy.

Minjee Lee balanced six birdies, including a run of four on holes 14 through 16, against four bogeys to card a two-under 70 for a solid T-3 finish on the day.

Natasha Oon posted a psycho scorecard with one double-bogey, five bogeys, seven birdies, and an eagle (that’s right – only four pars) for a two-under 70, moving up 30 spots to T-30 and a chance to play for a paycheck in her first round as an LPGA rookie.

Lucy Li, Lydia Ko, Rose Zhang, and Aline Krauter hung on just above the cut line at even par to survive to play the weekend, while Albane Valenzuela faded in the home stretch – after an even-par 36 going out (two birdies, two bogeys), she came home in 42 with two bogeys and two doubles to fall below the cut line.

Sadly, Concord native Yealimi Noh, the 2018 U.S. Girls Jr Amateur champion at Poppy Hills and the defending champion in this event, suffered a meltdown on the back nine yesterday and finished the first round at 7-over. That scoring hill proved to be a more difficult climb for her than the physical hills on the course – Noh would eventually close out her 36-hole run at a trunk-slamming (1) nine-over, well below the final cut line.

And, as if to justify the “moving day” moniker for the Friday round, here are some big positive moves that were recorded today:

• Jeeno Thitikul and Aditi Ashok each moved up 57 spots to join Nelly Korda and Karis Davidson (25 spots) in the T-3 logjam with Minjee Lee and three other players.

• Miyu Yamashita moved up 49 places on the leaderboard to T-11 (5-under.)

• Germany’s Helen Briem posted the second-best round of the day, a 5-under 67 (an eight-stroke improvement on her first-round 75), to jump a nose-bleeding 79 spots from below the cut line to T-30 and a spot in the field for the weekend.

With more comfortable temperatures in the mid- to high-70s forecast for the weekend it’s reasonable to predict a continued high level of play along the lines of what was seen today – which should be a treat for fans on course and watching from home.

1 (For those who might be unfamiliar with the term, “trunk-slamming” is a somewhat outdated reference to the move of the player who has missed the cut and can be found in the parking lot tossing their golf bag into the trunk of their car for the drive to the airport or the next event.)

First round at a new venue for the LPGA Founders Cup

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.

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.

Weather – its always about the weather

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.

Bay Area favorite has a rough day

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.

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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.

LPGA returns to the Bay Area March 19–22 with tournament honoring Tour founders

The LPGA is returning to the Bay Area March 19–22, after an absence of five years with The Founders Cup, a tournament honoring the 13 founding members of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

The 15th edition of this tournament, which is second only to the five majors on the LPGA schedule, has a new sponsor—Sunnyvale-based Fortinet, a leading cybersecurity firm, and a new venue—Sharon Heights Golf and Country Club, in Menlo Park.

Bay Area golf fans have been lacking the spark of the distaff tour since 2021, the last year that the Mediheal LPGA Championship was played at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City. Not only is ladies’ professional golf returning to the area, but a bevy of players with Bay Area connections will be in the field, including Concord native Yealimi Noh, the defending champion in this event.

Noh notched her first win on the LPGA Tour at the 2025 edition of The Founders Cup at Bradenton Country Club in Bradenton, Florida. Bay Area fans may remember her as the winner of the 2018 USGA Girls’ Jr Amateur Championship at Poppy Hills, the home of the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA), in the Del Monte Forest near famed Pebble Beach Golf Links.

Other players in the field who have Bay Area links include Lucy Li, of Redwood Shores, San Jose State standout Natasha Andrea Oon, who is making her first appearance as an LPGA member in this event, and Stanford alumnae Aline Krauter, Albane Valenzuela, and Rose Zhang.

Li came to national attention in 2014 as the youngest player, at age 11, to ever qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open. Since joining the LPGA Tour in 2023, Lucy has notched six career Top 10 finishes and 20 Top 25s. Rose Zhang, who also joined the Tour in 2023, was the 2024 champion in this event, and also put up a W in her first year out, at the 2023 Mizuho Americas Open.

Another notable name in the field that Bay Area golf fans with long memories might recall is Minjee Lee of Perth, Australia, who won the 2012 U.S. Girls Jr. Amateur at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City.

Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club is tucked into a scenic corner of the mid-Peninsula where Sand Hill Road meets I-280. The course plays at around 7,000 yards from the tips; not long by many standards, but it is a strategic course which will challenge the players this coming week with right- and left-hand doglegs, uphill and downhill fairways and wickedly subtle greens.

First-round play opens Thursday, March 19th with 7:25 a.m. tee times. Tickets are available at https://seatgeek.com/fortinet-founders-cup-tickets.

Flashback: Aussie comes out on top in “Lee vs Lee” 2012 Girls’ Junior Championship final

In honor of Aussie Minjee Lee gritting out a tough win this weekend at the KMPG Women’s PGA Championship – joining fellow Australian women Jan Stephenson and Karrie Webb as a three-time major winner – I would like to revisit my story (for a former outlet) of her record-setting 2012 USGA U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship win at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City:

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Given the number of girls in the ranks of girls’ and women’s golf who are either Asian-born or of Asian ancestry, it was almost inevitable that this would happen – Lee facing Lee for the USGA’s U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship. It is a tribute to the truly international flavor of girls’ and women’s golf, however, that the two young ladies who faced off over 36 holes of match play golf today at Lake Merced Golf Club, though sharing Korean ancestry, hail from countries on different continents, in different hemispheres, on opposite sides of the largest body of water on the planet, and are from cities that are 9300 miles apart.

Minjee Lee, 16, of Perth, Australia, raises the Glenna Collett Vare Trophy after winning the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Lake Merced Golf Club. She is the first Australian to take the title.
(Photo Credit: J. Mummert – USGA)

Alison Lee, 17, is a Southern California girl from Valencia, CA, in the Santa Clarita Valley; Minjee Lee is a 16-year-old Aussie from Perth, Western Australia. Despite the geographical distance between their home cities, on the golf course at the final of the Girls’ Junior Championship the competition between the two was as close as close can be.

Starting the morning round under a blue sky, rather than the usual marine-layer overcast that had greeted early rounds all week, Alison took a 1-up lead right out of the gate with a birdie 3 at the opening hole. They halved the next two holes, then Minjee squared it up with a par to Alison’s bogey at the fourth. Another string of three halved holes followed before Minjee went one up at the par-3 eighth hole.

Using a forward tee box, #8 was playing about 133 yards to a flag tucked back right and guarded by a bunker. Both girls went for the flag and were in good position in the back lobe of the green where the hole was cut, but Minjee was closer, and made her birdie putt to go 1-up.

Halving #9 with pars, they made the turn with Minjee 1-up, and stayed that way with a halved hole at #10. The young Aussie won another hole at #11, with a birdie to Alison’s bogey, then another string of three halved holes came and went before the next change in score, this time in Alison’s favor, when she parred the long par-3 fifteenth as Alison bogeyed. Halving the last three holes, they went to the lunch break with Minjee one up over Alison.

While the players, officials, and spectators broke for lunch, the grounds crew went out to make a few changes to the course setup for the afternoon round. No hole locations were changed, but the tee markers were moved to different locations on holes 2, 3, 8, and 12.

The second round opened with another string of halved holes, but the Alison made a clutch 25-foot putt on the 137-yard par-3 third to keep from going to 2-down.

Alison made up ground on her opponent at the par-4 fifth hole, making a clean approach from the right fringe and two-putting for par, while Minjee pulled her approach into a left-hand bunker, got out cleanly but missed the par putt

The match remained all square through the next two holes, then at #8, the par-3 where Minjee had made her move to go up in the match in the morning round, Alison made a move. Stretched to 168 yards for the day’s second 18 by the move to a different tee box, the hole played the reverse of the morning round – Alison birdied, Minjee made par, and now Alison was 1-up on the round

At the long par-5 ninth hole Alison got to the front fringe in two, while Minjee’s second shot, a low stinger, bounded and ran across the green and into the rough just off the back side. Alison’s chip to the back left flag ran 20 feet past, but she made the putt for her second birdie in a row, while Minjee chipped on and two-putted for par. Alison was now two up.

The first two holes of the final nine were halved in par, then Alison went to 3-up when Minjee’s tee shot at the 168-yard twelfth hole hit short and rolled down the hill below the green. The Aussie chipped on to about eight feet below the hole, then two-putted for a bogey four, while Alison made a clean two-putt for a par.

With a 3-up lead in hand Alison was feeling good as the match came to the 66th hole, the par-4 thirteenth. Both girls striped their drives to the bottom of the drop-off fronting the green – but here is where the match started to slip away from Alison.

After a good drive to the low approach area below the green, Alison chunked a 50° wedge into the right greenside bunker. She splashed out cleanly, but missed the fairly simple 4-foot downhill par putt she was left with. Minjee flew her approach shot to the green for a 20-foot uphill birdie putt. She left it short, but rolled in the par putt– and on the heels of Alison’s mini-meltdown, picked up a shot and was only two down.

Alison’s errors compounded at the par-4 fourteenth hole when she pushed her drive into a right-hand fairway bunker and pulled a fairway wood seeking to get out of the bunker and onto the green. She topped the ball, which ricocheted off of the low shoulder in front of the bunker, killing its momentum so that it rolled out no more than forty yards down the fairway. Her medium-iron approach ran well past the hole, and with two putts, she put up a five to Minjee’s four, and gave back a hole – she was now two up with four to play.

With two bad holes behind her, Alison was feeling the pressure, and must have sensed the match starting to slip away from her. She pulled her tee shot at the long par-3 fifteenth into one of the deep bunkers left of the green, then rocketed her sand shot 20 feet past the hole, two-putted for a bogey against Minjee’s routine on-in-one, two-putt par, and squared the match.

At the par-4 sixteenth, Alison’s drove about 220 yards to the right-center on the fairway, with Minjee in equally good position just a few yards behind. Flying her approach to a spot 25 feet above the front-left hole location, Alison missed a curling downhill putt for birdie, slid the par putt past by a hair and dunked her third putt for bogey. Minjee’s approach had left her with a more straightforward uphill 5-footer, and she two putted for an easy par to go 1-up, taking the lead in the match for the first time since the 21st hole.

The pair halved seventeen in a heartbreaker. Alison got on in two from the right side of the fairway, but her 8-foot downhill birdie putt hung on the lip of the hole, but wouldn’t drop – she made par. Minjee had left her approach from the right rough in the rough below and right of the front entrance to the green. With a little popped-up flop shot, she had four feet for par – made it, and went one up with one to play – dormie.

On the dramatic par-5 closing hole, both girls made good drives, then pulled their second shots into similarly tough situations on the left side of the fairway, below a pine tree that blocked the approach to the green. Alison ran a well-judged bump-and-run shot up to a position on the green few feet below the front-left flag; Minjee was in the rough and totally blocked by the tree from a direct line to the flag – she ran her approach low and right to a position on the apron below the green. She flopped it onto the green from there, leaving herself 4 feet for par.

From her spot on the collar of the green, Alison had one chance to ensure an extension of the match – make a 6-foot birdie putt. It wasn’t to be, however – the putt slid by the hole by a narrow margin, and after Minjee made her par putt, she was the victor at +1.

The win at Lake Merced makes Minjee Lee the first Australian girl to get her name on the Glenna Collett Vare Trophy; Alison Lee, who has now played in her last (of six) Girl’s Junior, will never see her name there. The Valley Girl from Valencia has one more year of high school golf ahead of her, then she will join the ever-strong UCLA women’s golf squad, where she will undoubtedly make a fine addition to the team.