Sei Young Kim cards back-to-back rounds of 65 to take lead at El Cab

By Amy Rogers

Sei Young Kim surged to the top of the leaderboard on day two of the JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro by giving up just a single bogey through 36-holes on her way to carding back-to-back rounds of 65. Kim leads at 14-under par, one stroke ahead of first-round leader Chizzy Iwai, and two strokes clear of Ina Yoon.

Kim wasted no time building off her 7-under par round on Thursday as she made birdie on two of her first three holes to go out in 34. But it was on the back nine that the major champion really caught fire. Kim was able to go pin seeking on a day when she said the greens were more receptive and recorded birdies on holes Nos. 11-13 to take the outright lead in the morning wave. The 33-year-old LPGA Tour veteran closed out her round with back-to-back birdies at the 16th and 17th holes to get off to her strongest start of the season.

Kim relied heavily on her solid ball striking through the first two days as she missed only three greens, which has helped offset finding just 50 percent of the fairways through the first two rounds.

Kim ended a five-year winless drought in October 2025 at the BMW Ladies Championship when she won for the first time since her major victory at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in 2020. Since then, Kim has continued to put herself in contention as she closed out the 2025 with back-to-back top 10s and added two more through her first five starts of 2026.

“I try to move forward whatever position is. That's what makes me the strongest, even like rest of the day,” Kim said about her mindset heading into the weekend. “This course has a lot of opportunity if you play well, so I think some player or couple players play good and we'll see.

A day after Iwai matched the tournament record with a round of 63, Iwai found a late spark to her round on Friday as she made birdies on three of her last six holes. But Iwai’s round could have been even lower as she missed several short birdie opportunities midway through the round and needed 30 putts en route to her round of 68 on Friday.

“My front nine I didn't make a short birdie putt, but my driver and my second shot was all consistent. Yeah, my shot is pretty good,” Iwai said after the second round. “I think tomorrow I need to be aggressive.”

Yoon began her day on the back and promptly birdied seven of her first nine holes to go out in 29. Yoon said after her round that it was at the turn that she realized that she had gone 7-under on her front nine and set a goal of adding four more birdies to her round in hopes of shooting 60. But Yoon was only able to record one additional birdie at the par 5, 7th hole on her second nine to shoot 8-under par 64 for the low round of the day.

“First nine holes was awesome. I never shoot 29 for nine holes in my life. It was unbelievable,” Yoon said with a smile. “The back nine was little bummer, but I had pretty good shot on the back nine as well. Some tricky putts on there. I made some. But it was good overall.”

Jin Hee Im and Melanie Green carded rounds of 68 on Friday to sit at 9-under par heading into the weekend along with Jessica Porvasnik.

The cut line fell at 2-under par with several notables failing to advance to the weekend including Brooke Henderson (-1), Leona Maguire (E), Ruoning Yin (E), Yana Wilson (+3), and Rose Zhang (+4).

Major champion Minjee Lee withdrew prior to the start of the second round following a 3-under par round of 69 on Thursday. Hyo Joo Kim, already a two-time winner this season on the LPGA Tour, also withdrew prior to the start of the second round along with Hye-Jin Choi.