Minami Katsu produced the only hole-in-one of Thursday's opening round of the 2026 Mizuho Americas Open, acing the 163-yard par-three seventh at Mountain Ridge Country Club in West Caldwell, New Jersey, on her way to a one-over 73 in the LPGA Tour event.
The 26-year-old from Fukuoka, Japan, who turned professional in 2014 and joined the LPGA full-time in 2024, is in her second season on the senior tour. The ace was confirmed by the LPGA's official social channels late on Thursday afternoon. It was the only hole-in-one across the 144 starters in the senior LPGA field for the round, and one of the early highlights of the week.
The seventh at Mountain Ridge plays as one of the venue's signature short par-threes, a downhill swing across a mid-iron distance to a green protected by a deep front bunker and a pond running along the right side. With the back-left pin for the opening round and a soft golf course following overnight rain, the field had treated the hole tentatively in earlier wave; Katsu's ball, on the cleaner mid-iron flight from the slightly elevated tee, hopped twice on the slope above the hole and rolled in.
Katsu's overall round mixed brilliance and turbulence. The ace was the only birdie or better on her card. She added bogeys on the second, the 11th, the 13th and the 17th, with otherwise unspectacular pars across the rest of the round. The result left her T64 entering the second round, well off the early lead held by Andrea Lee, who shot a 66 to set the pace at six-under.
It was the second hole-in-one of Katsu's professional career and her first on the LPGA Tour. The Japanese player, who came up through the JLPGA Tour and recorded eleven JLPGA wins before making the move to the United States, has not won on the LPGA but has finished inside the top-25 in five of her starts so far in 2026.
The Mizuho Americas Open is in its fourth year on the LPGA calendar. The format is unusual, pairing the senior 144-player tournament with a 24-player junior field on the same course over the same four days. The senior event, with a $3.25 million purse, awards $487,500 to the winner. The junior champion takes a college scholarship, exemptions into select AJGA events, and an invitation to next year's senior tournament.
Mountain Ridge is hosting for the first time. The course, an A.W. Tillinghast original from 1929, has been re-conditioned in advance of the 2026 event, with the greens noticeably faster than the field had practiced on Tuesday. Several players reported that the wind off the eastern New Jersey hills was the most difficult variable on Thursday afternoon.
For Katsu, the ace produces a moment of personal value beyond the leaderboard. Hole-in-ones at LPGA Tour events are commemorated with a personal trophy, and Mizuho has a tradition of donating a portion of the tournament proceeds to a charity nominated by each ace-maker.
The 7th will be marked for the duration of the tournament. Katsu's tee time for the second round was scheduled for the early Friday morning starts, with conditions forecast to be calmer than the windy Thursday afternoon that defined the opening day.