“It was important to get off to a really good start and I feel like I put myself in that kind of position,” Ko said “…it doesn’t matter if you’re from Chicago or Edmonton in Canada, the next few days are going to be cold anyway.”
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Earlier in the week, Ko was wearing a pair of puffy pants that she said looked like a comforter. These will come in handy over the weekend when temperatures plummet and the wind picks up.
A freeze warning is in effect for the Orlando area from 7 pm ET on Saturday until 1 pm ET on Sunday. Overnight temperatures will drop to 24 degrees Sunday morning with a high of 47 and winds gusting up to 25 mph.
Since the tee times for the final round will be significantly delayed, Sunday’s field will be reduced to 60 participants total (10 fewer groups, 30 fewer players). The LPGA’s 39 players will not be affected, but the celebrity field will be narrowed to 21 after the third round. Additionally, none of the amateurs in the field will play on Sunday.
England’s Lottie Woad and her caddy look on from the eighth tee during the first round of the 2026 Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club on January 29, 2026 in Orlando, Florida.
Night leader Nasa Hataoka, who joined Nona in 2019, shares third place with another Orlando resident, Amy Yang, who plays at Bay Hill.
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Ko moved inside Lake Nona Golf & Country Club around Christmas 2019. Her mother fixed up the place while she competed in the Asian swing that year. It turned out to be a good time to move, as the world shut down shortly after Ko settled in the Tony community and never left.
“It was great to be able to be inside the gates and I remember not being in a car for about three months,” Ko once said of the pandemic in 2020. “I stayed here, drove the stroller and that’s it.”
Woad moved to Tallahassee, Florida, from England to play college golf at Florida State and said the weather here in the Sunshine State has softened her a bit when it comes to the cold. That said, she takes advantage of adverse weather conditions, particularly windy conditions, as she demonstrated in a windy Women’s British Open two years ago at St. Andrews, when she tied for 10th as an amateur. Of course, Ko won that one.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” Woad said of the weekend’s brutal conditions, “but it’s also going to be fun.”
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Woad, a first-time TOC player, told media Thursday that he had to close his eyes on the greens several times to avoid seeing some action from the celebrities playing in his group.
On Friday, the 22-year-old was paired with two strong players: former tennis player Mardy Fish, a famous former champion, and MLB player Aaron Hicks, who shot 66 to take a two-point lead in the Modified Stableford scoring format.
With a ball speed of 192 and clubhead speed of 129, Hicks dominated some of the holes at Nona, starting the round with four straight birdies and adding an eagle on the 11th.
“I had to make sure I didn’t try to copy the lines he was saying,” Woad said, “because I couldn’t stand any of that.”
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Woad shares the same management company as Ko at Excel and enters her first full LPGA season after putting together an unforgettable summer in 2025, earning her card and winning her first start as an LPGA member. The former top-ranked amateur recently signed a new sponsorship deal with KPMG and passed her driving test in the U.S. She plans to buy a new car next week.
Would a winning check for $315,000 change what you buy?
“No, probably not,” said the practical Woad. “I don’t need something too big. Just a normal-sized car will be good.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lydia Ko, Lottie Woad co-manage LPGA Tournament of Champions