Staff WriterThe Dow Championship has a habit of making sensible scorecards look as fragile as a two-foot putt on punched greens, but Hyo Joo Kim and Hye-Jin Choi kept their balance best in round three, grinding out a 1-under-par 69 to take the lead at 10-under.
This was not a day for fireworks. It was more of a day for weathering small explosions. Team Lotte, as Kim and Choi are calling themselves this week, made four birdies and three bogeys in one of only six under-par rounds of the day. In alternate-shot golf, that counts as a reasonably civilised afternoon rather than a stroll.
It is the first time the Korean duo have paired up at this event. By Saturday evening, they had made the arrangement look rather useful.
Team Lotte Show The Value Of Calm Hands
Kim arrived in this tournament with the Rolex Ranking of No. 3, two LPGA Tour wins already in 2026, four top-10 finishes from eight starts and the unmistakable air of a player who does not need a compass to find the business end of a leaderboard.
Choi, ranked No. 17, has yet to win on the LPGA Tour, but has made 10 cuts in 12 starts this season and already owns three top-10 finishes. Her best result of 2026 so far is a T3 at the Mizuho Americas Open.
Together, they have reached Sunday with exactly the sort of profile that makes everyone else slightly uncomfortable: one proven closer, one accomplished player chasing a first LPGA victory, and a format on Sunday — four-ball — that offers room for aggression without quite demanding lunacy.
Choi knows the final day changes the temperature of the whole affair.
“Rather than foursomes, four-ball is obviously easier for the players, so for tomorrow for four-ball, the mindset will just be doing our best individually and hopefully that will translate.”
That is sensible enough to fit on a yardage book. It also neatly explains the puzzle. In four-ball, the leash comes off. One player can attack while the other keeps the furniture upright.
Wilson And Gina Kim Refuse To Behave Like Outsiders
One shot back, Yana Wilson and Gina Kim sit alone in second after an even-par round featuring two birdies and two bogeys. Their birdie at the 18th moved them to even par for the day and into solo second, which is a tidy way to leave a golf course: slightly smug, but entitled to be.
Their team name, Weapons of Grass Destruction, sounds like something dreamt up after three coffees and a bad lie in the rough. Yet the golf has been serious.
Wilson is a 2026 LPGA Tour rookie making her first appearance in the Dow Championship. Gina Kim has been here before with Juniper Jang, Jaravee Boonchant and Allisen Corpuz, but had not previously made the cut at this event. As a pairing, they are new. As a storyline, they are rather dangerous.
A win would give both players their first LPGA Tour titles and make them the Tour’s first and second Rolex First-Time Winners of 2026. It would also make them the second straight duo to claim the Dow Championship as their first career LPGA victories.
For Wilson, it would be even more striking: a first LPGA Tour win, a first career top-10 finish and the first rookie victory on Tour in 2026. No pressure, then. Just the small matter of rearranging a career in one Sunday afternoon.
Lee And Vu Stay Close Despite A Bruising 16th
Alison Lee and Lilia Vu are third at 8-under after a round that contained four birdies and one rather large dent. They were one of the six teams to break par, but their triple bogey at the par-4 16th — after Vu’s tee shot went out of bounds — gave the card the look of a dinner jacket with soup down the front.
Still, they remain close enough to be irritating, which is exactly where players of their quality want to be.
This is the first Dow Championship appearance for Lee and Vu as a duo, and Vu’s first start at the event since 2019. Their team name, Lavuvu, sounds like a tropical cocktail and played, for most of the day, with rather more bite.
Lee said the partnership has worked because they have resisted the temptation to turn team golf into a committee meeting.
“I feel like we just kept it really light out there. I mean, we didn’t really even talk much golf at all. Even during our practice rounds we didn’t really talk much strategy at all. Just kind of caught up and have just been enjoying the week. Being in the middle of year too you get to a point where you start it fatigue a little bit when you play so many events. Yeah, just kept it light. Lilia was nice enough to play 18 holes with me on Tuesday when I only played nine. Been a lot of fun.”
That is the charm of this format. Some teams arrive with charts, angles and elaborate tactical architecture. Others catch up, laugh a bit, and accidentally become contenders.
The Stakes For Kim And Choi
Should Team Lotte finish the job, Kim and Choi would become the second straight duo from the Republic of Korea to win the tournament.
For Hyo Joo Kim, victory would be her third LPGA Tour win of the 2026 season. It would make her the 11th player from the Republic of Korea to win at least three times in a single season, and the first since Jin Young Ko in 2021. It would also be her 10th career LPGA Tour title, making her the sixth player from the Republic of Korea to reach double digits.
There is also the neat historical marker that she would be the first player since Nelly Korda in 2024 to reach at least 10 career LPGA Tour victories.
For Choi, the reward would be different but just as weighty. She would become the LPGA Tour’s first Rolex First-Time Winner of 2026, the first since Miranda Wang at the 2025 FM Championship. It would come in her 114th LPGA Tour start and make her the 53rd player from the Republic of Korea to win on Tour.
That is quite a Sunday menu: personal breakthrough, national continuity, and a team title served on the same plate.
The American Chase Has Teeth
Wilson and Gina Kim are not merely hanging around for atmosphere. If they win, they would become the third American duo to capture the Dow Championship, and the first since the 2023 season.
They would also become the 208th and 209th American winners on the LPGA Tour, and the first new American winners since Yealimi Noh in 2025. Gina Kim would win in her 64th LPGA Tour start, while Wilson would complete the sort of rookie leap that makes agents smile and opponents stare into the middle distance.
Lee and Vu offer a more experienced American threat. Lee would become the Tour’s first Rolex First-Time Winner of 2026, winning in her 201st LPGA Tour start. She would also become the first player since Stacy Lewis in 2020 to win after giving birth to their child.
Vu, meanwhile, would collect her sixth career victory, her first win since the 2024 Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give, and her first top-10 finish of 2026.
In other words, the final round is not short of possible headlines. It is positively tripping over them.
A Format Built For Trouble
The Dow Championship’s team structure always gives the leaderboard a slightly mischievous edge. Foursomes can make professionals look briefly mortal. Four-ball can make them look like they have stolen something.
The scoring records underline how volatile this tournament can become. The 18-hole foursomes record is 62, set by Cheyenne Knight and Elizabeth Szokol in the third round in 2023. In four-ball, the record is 58, shared by Celine Boutier and Yuka Saso from 2024 and Minjee Lee and Jin Young Ko from 2019.
The 72-hole record sits at 253, set by Cydney Clanton and Jasmine Suwannapura in 2019.
So a two-shot deficit is not a moat. It is barely a damp patch.
Why Sunday Could Get Unruly
Kim and Choi have the lead, the credentials and the rhythm. Wilson and Gina Kim have youth, nerve and a chance to turn first-time contention into first-time glory. Lee and Vu have pedigree, lightness of mood and just enough irritation from that triple bogey to make Sunday interesting.
That is the beauty of the Dow Championship. It is not simply two players adding up birdies. It is trust, timing, recovery, psychology and the occasional sideways glance after a tee shot disappears somewhere unfortunate.
Team Lotte have earned the pole position. But four-ball has a wicked sense of humour, and Sunday tends not to reward anyone who arrives expecting a polite afternoon.
The leaders have the wheel. The chasers have the accelerator. Somewhere between the two, the tournament is waiting to bare its teeth.
