“Now that was a jaw-dropping performance. Just 11 weeks after major surgery left 27 screws in her mouth, Jessica Korda broke the Siam Country Club course record with a 62 on Friday and then shattered the Honda LPGA Thailand 72-hole record with a 25-under-par 263, closing with a 67 Sunday to win by four strokes in her 2018 tournament debut.

What made Korda’s performance utterly remarkable is that not only was this her first tournament of the season but for nearly three months she barely played at all. On Dec. 7, she endured a three-hour operation that required breaking her nose as well as breaking her top jaw in three places and her bottom jaw in two places. Doctors said the surgery was the only way to correct the severe overbite that caused Korda to use only 20 percent of her teeth when she chewed.

She didn’t hit a golf ball for a month and her first swings in early January were left-handed. She admittedly came into Thailand with very low expectations.

“I can’t believe this,” she said as she prepared to receive the winner’s trophy. “Today was such a blur. I was nervous. But this is where I made my first start rookie year so having it be my first place back now is pretty cool. I played really well this week.”
Ron Sirak LPGA