Early HSBC Leaderboard is Filled With Rising Forces on The LPGA

I love the Asia swing.

As an east coaster, every morning I wake up, it's like a little treat to see my inboxes and timelines flooded with highlights and updates. And I was pleasantly surprised by the first round leaderboard at the HSBC Women's World Championship—because it is stacked—but not with the usual suspects.

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Leading the way after the first 18 is a player whose career I've been following closely ever since I started covering women's golf and she was on the Epson Tour. Auston Kim is a name and face that you need to know. Last year she sat down with Skratch for our "Player's Journal" series and dished on her thoughts on the LPGA pro vs. male scratch golfer debate—give it a read (or two), her insights are earnest and she offers up a deeper, more compelling case that only someone in her shoes could.

She's also one of the longest hitters on Tour, and her swing is an underrated thing of beauty.

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Kim cruised to an early lead, making seven birdies and just one bogey in her opening round. She hit 10/14 fairways, 10/18 greens in regulation and recorded only 21 putts—the fewest putts across the field in the first round. She's leading at 6-under par, just one stroke clear of Yan Liu in second.

But most notably, this is the first time in her career that has had the outright lead after any round. After her round she said that today felt like a win within itself, but there's more golf left to be played.

"I mean, mission accomplished today," Kim said. "I feel like I won the day today. But there are still three more rounds. I really enjoyed playing today. I had a lot of fun and I felt like I stuck to my process really well. So it's just three more days of golf and try my best and try to win each day."

This is her third season on the LPGA and she's still searching for that maiden title. Last season she co-lead with Ayaka Furue and A Lim Kim after the first round of the 2025 Blue Bay LPGA. And her best career finish came at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, where she was T-2.

The 25-year-old has also found herself inside the top-40 in the Rolex Rankings for the first time. Though we're just weeks into the 2026 season, Kim a player that is on Skratch's radar, along with veteran player Lindy Duncan and rookie Mimi Rhodes, who are also sitting in prime position after round one. Both Duncan and Rhodes are tied at 4-under par.

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Duncan, like Kim, had an impressive 2025 season on the LPGA and found herself in positions she'd never been in before. The 35-year-old LPGA vet stormed onto the scene at last year's Chevron Championship, where she found herself in that wild five-player playoff on Sunday. She ended the year with six, top-10s and a career record of $1.2 million in earnings—by far her most lucrative season on the LPGA.

Lindy Duncan tees off on hole 1 during Day One of the HSBC Women's World Championship 2026 at Sentosa Golf Club on February 26, 2026 in Singapore.(Photo by Jason Butler/Getty Images).

As for Rhodes, this is her first year, and first event on the LPGA and she'll be an exciting one to watch. She was the rookie of the year on the Ladies European Tour in 2025, collecting three wins and three more top-10s.

In her LPGA debut, Rhodes posted a bogey-free round of 68 at Sentosa Golf Club against one of the strongest non-major fields on the schedule that features 17 of the top 20 players in the world.

She's in the field as a sponsor invite, and despite saying after her round that she didn't feel or play her best, being in Singapore is giving her a confidence boost before the rest of the season.

"It's showing me that my bad game is probably good enough and that when I have my A Game, I can compete with the best here, and that's what I've dreamed about doing since I turned pro. Just play against the best and see I compare," Rhodes said.

Mimi Rhodes of England smiles on the first hole during Day One of the HSBC Women's World Championship 2026 at Sentosa Golf Club. (Photo by Kate McShane/Getty Images)

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