South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim took an emphatic step toward defending her title at the Ford Championship on Saturday, setting an LPGA 54-hole record to build a four-stroke lead in Chandler, Ariz.

Despite that hot start, Kim is focused on keeping her approach consistent on Sunday.

“This course, anyone is capable of scoring low, so I will continue to just focus on the same game plan that I did today,” Kim said.

If that focus nets similar results, Kim will be in historic territory. On Saturday, Kim matched her first-day, 11-under-par 61 to put her at 25 under for the tournament, a pace through 54 holes that is the best in LPGA history.

Her 25-under stretch broke the previous record held by four players by one stroke.

Her bogey-free round included birdies on four of her first seven holes before she exceeded that hot start with four straight holes under par on Nos. 10-13. That stretch included an eagle on the par-5 No. 12.

Kim finished her remarkable day at the Cattail Course at Whirlwind Golf Club with birdies on 16 and 17, giving her nine birdies and an eagle on the day.

“I play with my mind, just focusing on one shot at a time,” Kim said. “When I think about the shots, whether it’s striking a certain distance or how I play, I just focus on each at a time.”

Kim’s closest pursuer, unsurprisingly, is World No. 2 Nelly Korda, who led after two rounds and carded a 5-under 67 on Saturday to get to 21 under.

The pair have seen a lot of each other of late, playing in the same group over five straight rounds. Kim kept Korda at bay in last week’s Founders Cup to win by a single stroke in Menlo Park, Calif.

“Nelly is my favorite player,” Kim said. “It’s been great playing together. You know, it’s been great playing with her, competing with her and it’s just been fun overall.”

Korda’s day included five birdies and no bogeys.

“I’m never going to complain about a bogey-free round and 5-under, so it was a solid one,” Korda said.

Korda herself has a healthy lead over her closest competitors, as five golfers are tied at 16 under, five strokes behind Korda (and nine behind Kim). That group consists of England’s Mimi Rhodes (63 on Saturday), Japan’s Chizzy Iwai (67), South Korea’s Ina Yoon (67), Japan’s Minami Katsu (69) and New Zealand’s Lydia Ko (69).

–Field Level Media

Ilia Malinin has three-peated.

The 21-year-old U.S. figure skater won his third straight world championship Saturday in Prague, scoring 329.40 points to win gold by a margin of 22.73 over Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama. Shun Sato also secured Japan a bronze medal.

Malinin becomes the first skater to win three consecutive world titles since Nathan Chen did it from 2018-2021. The 21-year-old is also the youngest to win three championships since Russia’s Alexei Yagudin in 2000, and he’s the second-youngest American to claim three after Dick Button did it at the age of 20.

Malinin’s triumph also serves as a redemption arc after being the gold-medal favorite in the Milan Olympics last month and finishing eighth. He landed five quads in the free skate as part of a routine that featured a lower degree of jump difficulty compared to his Olympic performance. Malinin also declined to attempt his trademark quad axel.

“My expectation was to leave the long program in one piece, and I definitely think that happened,” he said after the victory.

When asked if he intentionally chose a safer routine, Malinin responded: “A better answer to that question is, this has been time for me to relax and enjoy the last competition of the season.”

Malinin also enjoyed a return to his winning form after his 14-competition win streak, the longest stretch in men’s skating in decades, stalled out in Milan.

“This was probably one of the easier world championships I’ve been to, just because of the amount (of) pressure I had at the Olympics. And going into here, I felt like it was almost no pressure at all,” he said. “I completely blocked out all the expectations, all the pressure that people put on me and was really here to skate for myself and enjoy every moment of these world championships, and I think I did exactly that.”

Malinin’s success in the world championship could mean he’s destined for further redemption at the next Winter Olympics. Every U.S. men’s singles skater who’s won three-plus world titles has also won an Olympic gold, including Button (1948, ‘52), Hayes Alan Jenkins (1956), David Jenkins (1960), Scott Hamilton (1984) and Chen (2022).

The French tandem of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron won the gold medal in the ice dance competition.

They posted a 230.81 score to easily win over Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who took silver in 211.52. The American couple of Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik won bronze with a score of 209.20.

The world title is a record-tying sixth for Cizeron with the other five coming when Gabriella Papadakis was his partner. Cizeron and Papadakis also won gold in ice dancing at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Cizeron took a break after those Olympics and formerly retired in December 2024 but quickly had the itch to compete again. Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry teamed up in March 2025 and the latter used to compete for Canada.

The chemistry came together quickly and the 31-year-old Cizeron and the 33-year-old Fournier Beaudry won the ice dance gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics last month.

And now they put together a memorable performance on the world stage.

“I think that having left the stage for a short time, you know how precious these moments are,” Cizeron said after Saturday’s victory. “These are moments that I particularly like, the moment when you have just finished and you can just take this mental image that goes by so quickly.”

–Field Level Media

Owen Tippett notched his third career hat trick and fourth career four-point night as the Philadelphia Flyers survived a late scare to beat the Detroit Red Wings 5-3 to match their franchise record with eight straight road wins.

Noah Cates and Sean Couturier also scored for the Flyers (35-24-12, 82 points), and Jamie Drysdale and Travis Konecny posted two assists each.

Dan Vladar stopped 30 shots to go to 4-1-1 in his last six starts.

Mason Appleton, Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond scored for Detroit (39-25-8, 86 points), all within a span of 2:31 late in the third period as the Red Wings tried to dig out of a 4-0 hole. Moritz Seider assisted on two of them.

John Gibson made 17 saves on 21 shots for the Red Wings. Cam Talbot relieved Gibson and saved all four shots he faced.

Detroit had a chance to vault into the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot with a win. Instead, the Red Wings stayed tied with the Ottawa Senators, both a point back of the Columbus Blue Jackets, as the Flyers moved within four points with a game in hand.

The Flyers jumped ahead on their first shot of the game at 15:53. Tippett scored on a breakaway as Trevor Zegras found his teammate behind the Red Wings’ defense.

Tippett got his second goal with 7:32 to go in the middle frame. Denver Barkey dropped the puck back to the winger, open in the high slot.

Cates made it 3-0 on a rare power-play goal for Philadelphia with 3:52 remaining in the second. The Flyers entered Saturday with the league’s worst power play (14.5%) and only scored once in their last 27 chances.

Tippett got his third goal and chased Gibson on another power-play goal with 12:41 left in regulation.

The Flyers scored two power-play goals for just the sixth time this season.

It appeared Philadelphia had the game wrapped up, but Appleton ended Vladar’s shutout hopes with 6:17 left in the game. DeBrincat followed with his 37th at 4:50.

Talbot was pulled 14 seconds later, and Raymond cut the Flyers’ advantage to one with 3:46 remaining.

Couturier, though, ended any thought of Detroit positing its second four-goal comeback of the season with his empty-netter, assisted by Tippett, with 2:04 to go.

The 1982-83 Flyers also won eight straight road games.

–Field Level Media