Hyo Joo Kim climbs from 15th to fourth at home BMW Ladies Championship, two shots shy of the title

Hyo Joo Kim completed her home BMW Ladies Championship on 25 October 2026 in a tie for fourth, producing one of the steadier closing weekends among the leading South Korean players. At Pine Beach Golf Links in Haenam, South Korea, she carded rounds of 69, 69, 67 and 68. Her 273-stroke total was 15 under par, just two shots behind the champion. The finishing position is notable because Kim was tied for only 15th after 36 holes.

A weekend that changed her position

Kim opened with consecutive 69s for a halfway total of 138, six under par. Saturday's 67 brought seven birdies against two bogeys. According to the LPGA's third-round account, she found 13 of 14 fairways and 15 of 18 greens in regulation, needing 28 putts. That performance lifted her to a tie for seventh at 11 under entering the final day. Sunday's 68, four under par, carried her into a share of fourth. Across the final two rounds she shot 135, nine under, compared with 138 over the opening two days. It was an improvement in scoring, not a claim that she had been on the brink of winning from the start.

The Korean challenge and the narrow margins

Japan's Yuri Yoshida won at 17 under (271), taking her first LPGA Tour title. Two South Koreans, Haeran Ryu and Hye-Jin Choi, shared second on 16 under (272). Kim and fellow Korean Minsol Kim tied for fourth on 15 under (273). Four South Korean players thus occupied places inside the tournament's top five, even though the title went to Japan. The official LPGA results award Hyo Joo Kim 162.5 Race to CME Globe points and $107,439 in prize money for the finish. One stroke separated her from a tie for second, and two from a tie for the winning score.

More than another top-five finish

Kim, 31, arrived at the event with nine LPGA Tour victories, including the 2014 Evian Championship, her major title. Earlier in 2026 she won the Fortinet Founders Cup and Ford Championship. A fourth-place finish is not another trophy, but her rise from tied 15th to tied fourth at a home tournament demonstrates how quickly the leaderboard can change when a proven player strings together two strong rounds. In Saturday's official LPGA report, Kim pointed to improved putting and easier wind conditions as factors in her progress. There is no need to read a future result into this one: the confirmed outcome is a strong finish two strokes behind the winner.

Official final scores and round-by-round results: https://www.lpga.com/tournaments/bmw-lpga-championship/results. LPGA's Saturday profile: https://www.lpga.com/news/2026/hyo-joo-kim-climbs-to-t7-and-eyes-final-round-charge-at-bmw-ladies-championship.

Photo credit: 올댓골프리뷰 (All That Golf Review) / Wikimedia Commons, 14 May 2019. Archival photograph of Hyo Joo Kim, not from the 2026 event. Unmodified, licensed CC BY 3.0. File: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%EA%B9%80%ED%9A%A8%EC%A3%BC_%EA%B3%A8%ED%94%84_%EC%84%A0%EC%88%98.jpg. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.