NORTON, Mass. — Two-time 2024 LPGA Tour winner Lauren Coughlin appears to be keeping her hot streak rolling this week at the FM Championship. The 31-year-old opened with a 3-under 69 on Thursday at TPC Boston, a first-round effort that has her sitting near the top of a leaderboard once again on the LPGA Tour.
Coughlin got the party started early, grabbing a pair of back-to-back birdies on holes two and three to move to 2-under for the round. She parred her next three holes before striking again with a birdie on the par-5 7th hole, now sitting at 3-under with 11 holes to play, and then picked up another birdie on the par-4 9th hole to turn in 32 at 4-under overall.
Coughlin cooled drastically on her back nine, rattling off eight consecutive pars before closing with a bogey on the difficult par-5 18th hole. But despite the less-than-ideal finish, Coughlin was still pleased with how she played on day one in Massachusetts, even more so considering the challenges of competing at an unfamiliar venue.
“We don't really know what the scores will be because we haven't played here,” Coughlin said. “Most events, you can tell what the winning score is going to be based on conditions and in the past. This is a brand new one. But I think it's pretty tough.
“I played really solid. Disappointing bogey there at the last, but overall, I played really well. I made a lot of really good putts on the front nine. Greens were getting really firm and some of them aren't very deep, and so I was glad I got some on the front nine down and done in the beginning of the day. It's a really good golf course. Greens are rolling extremely good.”
Coughlin has been one of the hottest players on the LPGA Tour as of late, becoming a Rolex First-Time Winner at the CPKC Women’s Open and then collecting her second career LPGA Tour title just 21 days later at the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open.
She has earned five other top-10 results in her 20 previous tournaments this year, two of which came at major championships when Coughlin tied for third at The Chevron Championship and finished solo fourth at The Amundi Evian Championship.
And while her 2024 performance has put her at fourth in the Race to the CME Globe and made her $1,876,282 in season earnings, it most importantly automatically qualified Coughlin for her first U.S. Solheim Cup team. She clinched her spot on the American squad after her victory at Dundonald Links, and now, the journeywoman is set to compete in the biennial team competition at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., not too far from her hometown of Charlottesville.
Even though Coughlin is focused on the test in front of her this week at TPC Boston, she is most definitely using the FM Championship as one final competitive tune-up before teeing it up in her first Solheim Cup, an experience she is very much looking forward to enjoying in just two weeks.
“The golf course is an hour and ten minutes from my house, so we got asked about a flight and I was like, don't worry about it. I'm going to just be driving up there,” Coughlin said. “I'm extremely excited. I have friends and family going to be coming, some people that don't really get to get a chance to come watch me play because we don't really usually get to play very close to where I live. So, I'm excited.”
But there’s still a tournament to be played this week, and considering her recent form, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see Coughlin once again in contention early at the FM Championship. With 54 holes to go, Coughlin will continue to lean on both her hot hand and the confidence she has curated this season as she works to put herself in contention for a third LPGA Tour title this week in Norton, Mass.
“I've started to hit it well enough to where I'm hitting a majority of my greens and not really having to get up and down all that much,” said Coughlin. “Most of it is probably making sure I don't three-putt a couple of times on some of the longer putts I might give myself. I remember, after Canada, I was like, I want to (win) again, so I was just thinking, keep doing what I'm doing, don't change anything. That's kind of been my whole thing.”
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