Staff WriterThe Mizuho Americas Open has reached that delicious stage where every yard feels longer, every putt looks like it has borrowed a mortgage, and Jeeno Thitikul once again appears entirely too comfortable in the sort of pressure that turns most scorecards into origami.
At Liberty National Golf Club, the Rolex Rankings No. 2 carded a third consecutive under-par round to move to 10-under and take the lead into the final round. It was her 26th round led or co-led across the last five LPGA seasons, tying Nelly Korda for the most in that span.
That is not form. That is a habit.
Thitikul Keeps Her Title Defence On Track
Thitikul is trying to defend the Mizuho Americas Open title, and the numbers around her are beginning to look less like statistics and more like a warning label.
This is her fourth start at the event. She won in 2025, finished T7 in 2024 and T10 in 2023. In other words, she has never finished outside the top 10 here. Liberty National clearly suits her eye, her rhythm and whatever invisible machinery keeps great players calm while the rest of the field starts counting trouble.
A win on Sunday would give Thitikul her ninth career LPGA Tour victory, her second title of the 2026 season and a successful defence of the Mizuho Americas Open. It would also mark the second time in her career she has defended a title, following the 2025 CME Group Tour Championship.
She would also become the fourth two-time winner on the 2026 LPGA Tour season and the second player this year to successfully defend a title.
Rather neatly, she would surpass $18 million in career official earnings and become the fastest player to reach that mark. She already has eight wins, 57 career top-10 finishes and $17.8 million in career official money. Add in a 2025 Rolex Player of the Year award, two Vare Trophies and a Louis Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year honour, and the résumé is starting to look like it needs its own trolley.
Asked about heading into the final round with the chance to defend, Thitikul offered a wonderfully honest window into the brain of a player trying not to get ahead of herself.
“I just surprising myself right now still that I don’t even think — I don’t expecting myself to be on this position with the game that I have yet. But, I mean, like it’s just golf. Just another day going in, you know, like another tournament, another 18 holes that I have tomorrow.
It’s a new days and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know I just going to let golf be golf and then let myself be committed to golf and then just go by the flow with it and then just give myself a lot of chances, another opportunities under my belt that I have in the final round again.”
Boutier Finds A Timely Gear
Two shots back sits Celine Boutier at eight-under, and her timing could hardly be better.
Boutier’s 208 is her second-lowest 54-hole score of 2026 and her best since the Ford Championship, where she posted 207. This is also the first time since the 2025 Mizuho Americas Open that she has been inside the top two heading into the final round.
That matters, because Boutier has been searching for a spark. She has not had a top-10 finish this season, with her best result a T18 at The Chevron Championship. Her last top 10 came at the 2025 BMW Ladies Championship, where she finished T3.
A victory would be her seventh LPGA Tour title and her first since the 2023 Maybank Championship — a gap of 924 days. It would also make her the first Frenchwoman to win on Tour since herself in 2023, the first European winner on the LPGA Tour this season, and the first player from France or Europe to win the Mizuho Americas Open.
That is quite a lot to chase down in one Sunday, but Boutier has the temperament of someone who could defuse a firework with a butter knife.
On whether she will be aggressive chasing Thitikul, she was clear that Liberty National is not the place for wild lunges.
“I think this course is very tricky because you can’t be too aggressive otherwise, you can leave yourself some tough shots and tough putts. Sometimes you have to be a little bit conservative, and that’s kind of the way that you leave yourself the best chance of making a birdie. I feel like you have to be pretty smart and kind of like almost patient about it, because sometimes you’re tempted to go for things but it’s not always the smartest choice. I feel like kind of learning which areas of the pin or like of the green you want to be on for your next is kind of helpful.”
That, in one quote, is Sunday golf at Liberty National: ambition wearing a seatbelt.
Hye-Jin Choi Makes Her Move With A 66
Hye-Jin Choi matched the low round of the day with a third-round 66, vaulting into third place and ensuring this final round will not be a polite two-player conversation.
Choi’s Saturday round was a nine-shot improvement on her second-round 75, the sort of reversal that makes a leaderboard sit up straight. It is the third time this season she has been inside the top five heading into the final round. She was T2 before the final round at Blue Bay LPGA, eventually finishing T5, and T5 before the last round at the Fortinet Founders Cup, where she finished T14.
Her best finish at this event is T33 in 2025, so this is already a significant step forward. A win would be even bigger.
Choi would become the LPGA Tour’s first Rolex First-Time Winner of 2026, the first since Miranda Wang at the 2025 FM Championship. She would also become the 53rd player from the Republic of Korea to win on the LPGA Tour and the first Korean winner of the Mizuho Americas Open.
It would come in her 110th LPGA Tour start, having joined the Tour in 2022. There are easier ways to earn your first win than chasing Thitikul around Liberty National on a Sunday, but Choi has at least given herself a proper look.
Liberty National Sets The Stage
The Mizuho Americas Open has already built a compact but notable scoring history at Liberty National.
Hannah Green owns the 18-hole tournament scoring record with a 63 in the third round in 2024. Thitikul holds the 36-hole record at 135 from 2024, plus the 54-hole record at 202 and the 72-hole mark at 271, both set in 2025.
That tells you two things. First, the course can be scored on. Second, Thitikul has done rather a lot of the scoring.
She enters Sunday ranked fourth in the 2026 Race to the CME Globe, with one LPGA Tour win this season, four top-10 finishes and $454.8K in official season earnings. She also won the Honda LPGA Thailand in her second start of the season, though she missed the cut at The Chevron Championship in her most recent start.
Golf, as ever, refuses to behave neatly.
AJGA Spotlight: Aphrodite Deng Leads The Juniors
Away from the LPGA leaderboard, Aphrodite Deng leads the AJGA competition with a score of 110 in the modified Stableford format.
Deng, currently ranked No. 2 in the Rolex AJGA Rankings, earned 40 points in the third round — the highest single-round score by an AJGA player this week. She also won this event last year, so clearly she has not come here merely to admire the skyline.
The junior element remains one of the Mizuho Americas Open’s sharper ideas: elite professionals and elite young amateurs competing alongside one another, the future of the game peering directly at the present.
Mizuho Adds Missed Cut Stipend
There was also a significant player-support note this week, with Mizuho adding a $2,000 missed cut stipend.
Players making the 36-hole cut of low 50 players and ties receive CME Points and official money based on their finish after 72 holes. Players who miss the 36-hole cut but remain within the low 65 players and ties receive CME Points and official money based on their 36-hole finish using the standard LPGA purse.
Players outside the low 65 players and ties receive the $2,000 missed cut stipend as unofficial money, separate from the overall purse, with no CME Points.
Mi Hyang Lee withdrew during the second round due to injury, while Haeji Kang withdrew during the first round due to injury.
Sunday Has All The Ingredients
The final round of the Mizuho Americas Open now has a familiar champion, a French contender looking to end a long wait, and a Korean challenger chasing a first LPGA Tour title.
Thitikul has the lead, the course history and the poise. Boutier has the patience and the precision. Choi has momentum and the freedom of a player who has already dragged herself back into the fight.
Liberty National will decide how much risk it rewards. Sunday will decide whether Thitikul’s grip tightens into history, or whether one of her pursuers can turn the final round into something messier, louder and far more uncomfortable.
Either way, the Mizuho Americas Open has found its Sunday pulse.
