Ko puts drought of nearly two years behind her

Lydia Ko with her trophy following her win in San Francisco last month

Lydia Ko had not won for 22 months, her world ranking had dropped to 18 and it was difficult to keep up with the changes she had made in her game.
But all that was put behind Ko at San Francisco in California last month when the New Zealand star won the $US1.5 million LPGA Mediheal Championship at the Lake Merced Golf Club.
The win came less than a week after her 21st birthday and was amongst her most emotional. When she knocked in the winning putt she looked towards the sky, wiped tears from her eyes and then was enveloped in hugs from her new swing coach Ted Oh and her latest caddy, Johnny Scott, a bearded Scotsman.
All this seemed a little out of place for someone who had won 14 previous times on the LPGA Tour but underlined what must have been a frustrating period. Ko had changed her coach, changed her clubs and gone through a plethora of caddies.
The win came in dramatic fashion. After the regulation 72 holes Ko was tied with Minjee Lee, an Australian who had regularly competed with Ko since their amateur days.
Lee, playing in the second-last group immediately ahead of Ko, holed out from a greenside bunker on No 17 for birdie and then rolled in a six-footer on the final hole to finish at 12-under par with a closing 68.
Ko, meanwhile, had stumbled early in her round with bogeys on three of the first six holes. But she righted the ship with birdies on three of the final six holes, including the 18th after nearly pitching in for eagle. Ko finished with a last round score of 71 and a play-off was required to find a winner.
Ko and Lee headed back down the par five 18th and more dramatics were to follow. Lee outdrove Ko by about 20 metres and had a four-iron into the green.
But Ko, hitting first, nearly holed her three wood from more than 200m for what would have been an albatross two. Ko later described it as one of the best shots of her career.
Lee then missed the green with her second shot, pitched about three metres past the hole – no doubt feeling she needed a chip-in to tie Ko whose ball was less than a metre from the flagstick which she duly holed.
Ko’s three wood on the play-off hole was similar to another shot she had played earlier on the day.
“I hit some really good three woods today and I said, hey, you’ve got to maybe try and copy the one on the other par five,’” Ko recalled.
“I was able to hit a good shot again and I didn’t really know how close it was going to be. But just to have a two-and-a-half foot putt to possibly win the event is a pretty good feeling, but also nerve wracking, too.”
Ko said she tried not to let her poor final day start unsettle her.
“It’s crazy because I was three over for the day at one stage today and I said, hey, you know, you’ve just got to focus and you never know what’s going to happen.
“I was able to kind of put my game together on the back nine.”
The Lake Merced course has been a happy hunting ground for Ko. She had won there twice previously in 2014 and 2015 while oddly enough, Lee won the US Girls’ Junior Championship on the same course in 2012.
Ko admitted the win came as great relief.
“When that putt dropped, I was like oh, my god,” she said.
“I actually thought my chip might go in the first time I played the 18th hole, but a lot of emotions. My whole team and my family, they’ve worked really hard for this moment, so I’m happy that a few of them are here and we can celebrate together.”
Ko’s win showed that no one was dominating the LPGA Tour. It was the 10th tournament of the season and the 10th different winner, from six different countries.

Ko facts and figures

Lydia Ko’s record following her third win at the Lake Merced Golf Club in San Francisco:-
Birthdate: April 24, 1997; currently 21 years old.
Joined the LPGA Tour in 2014.
Wins on LPGA Tour: 15 (including two as an amateur).
Previous LPGA wins: 2012 Canadian Women’s Open (as an amateur), 2013 Canadian Women’s Open (as an amateur), 2014 Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic, 2014 Marathon Classic, 2014 Tour Championship, 2015 Women’s Australian Open, 2015 Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic, 2015 CP Women’s Open, 2015 Evian Championship, 2015 Taiwan Championship, 2016 Kia Classic, 2016 ANA Inspiration, 2016 Arkansas, 2016 Marathon Classic.
Earnings: The winner’s purse at Lake Merced was $US225,000 which took her earnings for the season to $US354,715 and her LPGA career earnings to $US8.9 million.
The win at Lake Merced came 44 starts since her previous victory, her longest stretch without a win in her LPGA career; she had 15 top 10 finishes in that time including three runner-up finishes.
The win saw her climb from 18 to 13 in the world rankings. Ko previously held the top spot in the world during two stretches throughout her career, first at 19 weeks in 2015 and then for another 85 weeks between 2015 and 2017. Ko lost the No 1 spot in June 2017 and dropped to No 18 ahead of her victory at Lake Merced Golf Club. It was her lowest ranking since August 2013, before she joined the Tour, when she was ranked at No 19.