Olympic gold and hall of fame entry — just more greatness for Lydia Ko 

By Paul Gueorgieff, 
Golfer Pacific editor

It was the crowning glory for Lydia Ko.

Her win at the Olympics in France saw her become the first to win all three medals in Olympics’ golf and at the same time ascend to the Ladies’ Professional Golf Association (LPGA) hall of fame.

The LPGA hall of fame is especially noteworthy. The hall of fame represents the most accomplished and influential athletes in the history of women’s golf and she has achieved entry at the age of 27 — the youngest to do so, under the current criteria, of the now 35 members.

Prior to March, 2022, induction criteria included the requirement that a player be active on LPGA Tour for 10 years. Karrie Webb reached the 27-point threshold at age 25 with her victory at the 2000 US Women’s Open but did not reach the 10-year requirement until age 30 in 2005.

Ko fully understood the greatness of the combined feat of gold medal and hall of fame induction.

``For it to have happened here at the Olympics is just unreal,” Ko said. 

``I do feel like I’m a mythical character in a story tale. It really couldn’t have gotten any better than I could have imagined, and I’ve had so many grateful things that happened in my career so far, and this really tops it. I couldn’t have asked for anything more to be honest.”

Ko’s list of achievements is simply amazing.

On the Olympic level there was silver at the Brazil games in 2016 and bronze at the Japan games in 2020 before last month’s gold.

On the LPGA Tour in the United States, the world’s richest golf circuit for women, she has won 20 times and earned nearly $US18 million.

Two of the wins were in major championships, they being the 2015 Evian Championship in France and the 2016 Chevron Championship in California. 

Her first win on the LPGA Tour came as an amateur in the 2012 Canadian Open which saw her become the tour’s youngest winner. She was aged 15.

A points system determined Ko’s hall of fame induction. She gained two points for each of her major championship wins and one point for each of her other 18 wins on the LPGA Tour.

She also picked up a further four points by twice winning both the Vare Trophy and LPGA Player of the Year in 2015 and 2022. The Vare Trophy is given to the player with the lowest scoring average at the end of a season.

That gave her a total of 26 points with the Olympics’ gold giving her the necessary 27 points to unlock the door to hall of fame.

Away from the LPGA Tour, Ko has also won seven times on the Ladies' European Tour, five wins on the Tour of Australasia and one win on the Korean LPGA Tour. She also partnered with Jason Day to win the inaugural Grant Thornton Invitational, a mixed-team unofficial event featuring PGA Tour and LPGA Tour stars last December.

Ko’s win at the Olympics was achieved in her typical consistent style.

She had rounds of 72, 67 and 68 on the par 72 course at Le Golf National in Paris to go into the final round with a share of the lead at nine under par with Maja Stark of Sweden.

Stark fell out of contention early in the final round  and while Ko bogeyed her first hole she later racked up three birdies to hold a five-shot lead early in the second nine.

But just as victory was looking inevitable, Ko bogeyed the par four 13th when her second shot went into the water and she made double bogey. Her lead was now down to just one.

Ko said she just tried to stay composed.

“I just said to myself that I’m going to keep focusing and focusing until the ball drops on the 18th hole because I’ve had so many interesting things that have happened in my career that I wanted to focus until the very end, and then just say, okay, now it’s done,’” Ko said.

``It was unfortunate that it happened at that time but I knew that the 14th hole was a gettable par five.’'

Ko only made par at 14 but she went to the par five last hole with the comfort of only requiring a par to take gold.

As it was, Ko made birdie to win the tournament by two shots at 10 under par from Esther Henseleit of Germany who had a great final round of six under par 66 and finish at eight under par.

The bronze medalist was Xiyu Lin of China as seven under par.

Ko said she appreciated the great support from the crowd.

``They were saying my name and whether I hit good shots or bad shots. They were with me the whole way.’'

Ko said this would be her last Olympics’ appearance but would remain playing professionally for the meantime. She has previously said she would retire at age 30.

``It is a big decision but the golfing world will still see me for a while.''