TELFER’S THOUGHTS 30.3.26

Shooting a score of 60 in any tournament, be it as an amateur or a top professional, is a moment of unalloyed joy which very few golfers experience at any time in their career. Yet both New Zealand’s top two golfers, Ryan Fox and Lydia Ko, have joined this elite club this year. Ryan Fox, playing in a charity event prior to starting his 2026 overseas playing schedule, wheeled out a 10-under par 60 on the Akarana Golf course in Auckland, setting a new course record that will now require a piece of golfing history to lower.

Then Lydia turned up last week, showing us all that anything Foxy can do, she can match. Playing in the Ford Championship in Arizona, Lydia blasted a 12-under par opening round of 60 - 12 birdies and 6 pars. Off the top of my head, I can’t recall another round of golf at this level in either the men’s or women’s game which contained 12 birdies. Amazing.

Now while Lydia wasn’t able to get close to that 60 in any of her final three rounds, H-J Kim, second to Lydia after her first round, then went out and carded yet another 61 in her third round. Again I can’t remember any golfer in a PGA Tour event at this level with 2 61’s on their card in the same tournament.

With absolutely no disrespect to either Lydia or H-J, this was by no means the toughest course these women will encounter this year. A further indication of how easy this course was playing can be seen by the fact that not one player who finished in the top ten shot over par. Every round of those top ten was under par.

I think if I were living in Arizona I’d be beating a path as quickly as possible to that club to get a membership.

H-J Kim, not surprisingly, went on to win the tournament, finishing with a four-round score of 260, 28 under par. Lydia, with final rounds of 71, 69 and 68, finished 4 th , picking up a cheque of around NZ$170,000.

Interestingly, Lydia with that 60 recorded her lowest-ever round in professional golf and it tied as the second lowest in the history of the LPGA Tour. Her career earnings now top US$21 million, leaving her just US$1 million shy of Annika Sorenstam’s record for the most money won by a woman in professional golf.

Unfortunately the news from our elite men over the weekend was nowhere near as bright. Ryan Fox, in his first outing back since being sidelined with kidney stones, failed to make the cut at the Texas Open and now has just one more tournament left before The Masters starts at Augusta on 9 April.

And Kazuma Kabori, the very personification of consistency on the DP World Tour from week to week, was again initially showing this strength of his game in the Indian Open with rounds of 71, 71, and 70, all under par through 54 holes, then one disaster after another befell the young Kiwi on Day 4. His troubles started on the 2nd hole with a bogey, followed by a double on the very next hole, then a double catastrophe on 8 and 9 - a double bogey followed by a triple bogey 7 on the 9th for an outward 9 of 44, 8 over the card. Kazuma managed to stem the bleeding on the back nine, playing the first even holes in even par, only to stumble badly on the two closing holes - a double bogey 6 on 17 followed by another double bogey on the par 5 18th . So out it in 44 and home in 40 for a 12- over par 84 which left him in a tie for 50th place. Did he sustain some sort of injury early in his round which caused this unusual slump? Nothing has emerged at the time of writing to suggest anything was wrong with him physically. However his driving, such a strength of his game, was well off on Day 4. He hit only 50% of fairways well, below his usual 70–80%. As a result he only hit 27% of greens in regulation. Clearly something was not right.

Did he just have a mental meltdown after things started to go wrong? We may get a clearer picture later this week. If he doesn’t start this week, we can assume he is probably carrying some sort of injury.