by LPGA Season-Opener Takeaways
By Med Adkins
After watching the action at Lake Nona all weekend, here are some takeaways from the first LPGA event of the 2025 season.
Three for the Queen
A Lim Kim waited almost four years between her first and second wins on the LPGA Tour. In November, she won the Lotte Championship to end the drought that went back to her 2020 U.S. Women’s Open victory. Win number three came just three months later as she outlasted a Sunday charge from Nelly Korda at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. Nicknamed Queen Kong in her early years because of her distance off the tee, A Lim is now affectionately known as just Queen. An appropriate moniker for someone bursting with confidence. The swagger was on full display yesterday as she fist-pumped her way around the back nine and carded one more birdie for good measure at No. 18 giving us what might be the earliest putter raise we’ll see all year.
Equipment Shakeups
The first tournament of the year is the first time players really get to put their new equipment to the test. That test didn’t last long for Nelly Korda and Lydia Ko as they each switched out clubs after the first round. For Nelly, the new Taylormade Qi35 driver didn’t match the comfort level she has with her Qi10 from last year. She’ll stick with the club that helped her win seven times last season at next week’s Founders Cup. Since she won’t be making the trip overseas to Asia after Founders Cup, she’ll have time to continue to test the Qi35 and could put it in play later this year. For Lydia, a switch to her putter from 2022 was short-lived. Describing the 2022 Scotty Cameron as more “face balanced,” Lydia said a choice to make life easier can have consequences when athleticism gets taken out of the equation. She switched back to her putter from last year referencing the old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Lastly, Minjee Lee is officially on Team Broomstick. After a 10-under 62 on Sunday, she has to be happy with the initial results. Whether it’s just a honeymoon phase or the new putter is still up in the air, but watch out for Minjee if the weakest part of her game sees substantial improvement.
In Praise of an Early Finish
A Lim’s birdie putt at 18 dropped right before 3:30 p.m. local time. That’s a whopping 30 minutes before the coverage window ended. It was still a five-hour round for the final threesome of Kim, Ko, and Linn Grant, so hold your applause, but finishing that far ahead of the allotted broadcast time rarely ever happens. You’d expect a slow slog around the course with more celebrities and amateurs teeing it up than actual professionals and the broadcast having to rush off the air seconds after the final putt. The opposite happened Sunday, and it was refreshing to have time for post-round interviews, highlights of the final round, and analysis from on-course reporters Karen Stupples and Paige Mackenzie. You know, things any fan of the game would expect to see at the end of a tournament.
McIlroy Dominates at Pebble Beach
By Joseph LaMagna
The PGA Tour needed a successful weekend, and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am delivered. Without football competing for sports fans’ attention, Pebble Beach took center stage and produced four days of compelling golf featuring nearly all of the best players in the world. While much is made of the PGA Tour not owning any of the five most valuable television properties in the sport, assembling top talent on an advantageous date at an iconic, world-class venue is a recipe for an awesome golf tournament.
When the weather bares its teeth on the Monterey Peninsula, Pebble Beach is must-watch television. Saturday was a butt-kicker, and it identified the Trackman golfers who are accustomed to hitting stock fades on run-of-the-mill golf courses in dome-like conditions. Trajectory control isn’t tested often on the PGA Tour, but when windy conditions necessitate flighting the golf ball, not every player has answers for those questions. I don’t think it’s a coincidence to see older, polished golfers like Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, Russell Henley, and Billy Horschel finish in the top 10 here, just as all four did at Royal Troon last July.
Regarding specific holes at Pebble, I’ve developed a deeper appreciation over the years for the third hole, a hard dogleg left that forces golfers to shape the ball in the opposite direction the game has trended. Nearly every modern professional golfer prefers to play a stock fade off the tee. Holes like the third at Pebble, or the 10th and 13th at Augusta National, force pros to leave their comfort zones and shape the ball from right to left.
As for the tournament itself, five to eight golfers had a legitimate chance of winning entering Sunday, with Sepp Straka holding a one-shot lead over Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry. By the time the final group walked off the 14th green, the tournament was effectively over. McIlroy had just eagled No. 14 (driver–7-iron!) to pull ahead of the field by three – one of just two eagles made on 14 on Sunday.
McIlroy’s weekend was dominant, the kind of clinical performance required to win at the highest level – the kind he hasn’t quite delivered while contending late in majors over the past few years. When the weather reared its head on Saturday, Rory carded a bogey-free, 7-under 65, clearing the field scoring average (71.56) by more than 6.5 strokes despite playing through some of the worst conditions. His and Lowry’s 65s on Saturday will stand as two of the most impressive rounds played in 2025.
In the final round, McIlroy played patiently and away from trouble, recording one bogey against five birdies and an eagle to post 6-under 66. His monster drives on the 14th hole stole most of the spotlight, but his performance on the 10th hole impressed me the most. With the tournament hanging in the balance, he played a smart drive, favoring the left side of the fairway and away from the hazard down the right. The tee shot ended up farther left than he’d have hoped and wound up in the left-hand fairway bunker, which is an outcome you accept when you wisely play away from the penalty area. Then faced with a difficult approach shot into the wind, Rory hit a brilliant 160-yard 6-iron to 18 feet and drained the putt – the only birdie made on 10 from the last three pairings.
After his Saturday round, McIlroy mentioned striving to play more intelligently, like Scottie Scheffler. His 10th hole is what playing like Scheffler looks like. If Rory can continue to pair strong execution with sound course management, he will have opportunities to end his major championship drought this year, especially given how favorably the venues set up for him.
In other top-of-the-world-ranking news, Scheffler finished T-9 in his much-anticipated season debut. In an alternate universe, we’d be blown away by how well Scottie played this week. He led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach in his first competitive start in two months after being sidelined with a hand injury. However, that’s the type of performance we’ve come to expect from the world No. 1, who appears to be as resilient and variance-proof as any golfer on the planet.
Elsewhere in season debuts, Jordan Spieth made his first start on the PGA Tour following an offseason wrist surgery. Competing on a sponsor exemption, Spieth fired 70-72-79-67 to finish T-69 out of 78 golfers. Despite the shaky start to the year, the effort wasn’t all for naught. With the finish, Spieth earned 5.75 FedEx Cup points, which places him ahead of 12 PGA Tour players who have made a cut this season.
And last but not least in the global superstar category, Tom Kim made frequent appearances throughout the telecast, often for 70-80 seconds at a time! Kim is a very skilled pro, but his glacial pace of play is pathetic. Eventually, his group was put on the clock. Whether or not he’s facing fines behind the scenes, his slow-play issues are painfully evident when he turtles his way into contention. Let’s keep it moving, TK.
This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
