Is there just six years more to go for Ko on the golf course?

Lydia Ko recently reiterated her desire to retire from golf at age 30.

Ko stunned the golf world in 2015 when she announced prior to the start of the Australian Open in Melbourne that she had no great ambition to be playing golf into her thirties. She was aged 17 at the time.

Ko repeated the reitrement thoughts prior to the start of the Women’s Open in Scotland last month.

“I kind of set a goal of retiring when I’m 30,’’ she said.

``I hope to not be playing when I’m 34. I love this game, but I feel like there’s also a lot of other things that I would like to do in my life.''

Ko will turn 30 in 2027. She was born on April 24, 1997.

New Zealand golf fans would have been disappointed with Ko’s initial announcement. Ko had vaulted straight to the top of the world stage and we selfishly would have been hoping she would fly the New Zealand flag proudly for decades more. We might allow Ko to drift off the scene when she was in her mid-sixties.

But we have to remember golf, at the top level, has been Ko’s life since a young age.

She became the youngest winner of a professional golf tournament when she won the New South Wales Open in 2012. She was aged 14.

Later that year, at 15 years and four months, she became the youngest winner of a Ladies’ Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour event when taking out the Canadian Open. Ko was still an amateur and became the first amateur to win on the LPGA Tour in 43 years.

Ko again won the Canadian Open the following year while still an amateur but turned professional a couple of months later. The fortunes have continued.

She is now the winner of 16 tournaments on the LPGA Tour, the world’s richest women’s golf circuit. Two of the wins have been in major championships, the 2015 Evian Championship in France and the 2016 ANA Inspiration in California.

Her prizemoney earnings on the LPGA Tour are about $US12 million. That’s more than 17 million in New Zealand dollars.

She also has bronze and silver medals from last month’s Olympic Games in Tokyo and the Olympic Games at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 2016.

They are all staggering figures.

Also think about this. When Ko played in the Women’s Open last month it was her 10th appearance. Yes, I said 10th. That is amazing.

For the record, since 2012, Ko's finishing positions in order have been 17th, 42nd, 29th, 3rd, 40th, 59th, 11th, missed cut, 14th and 29th. When she finished 17th in 2012, Ko won the Smyth Salver for being the leading amateur and she shared that trophy the following year with Georgia Hall of England.

But when it comes to longevity in the Women’s Open, it is 1986 winner Laura Davies who takes the prize. The Englishwoman was having her 41st consecutive start in the tournament last month and made the cut. Yes, I said 41st.

Ko, remember, is still only aged 24. It will be another six years before she turns 30.

What she achieves between now and then is hard to predict but there is little question she has regained her best form after a period where she changed clubs, caddies and coaches like changes in the weather. She also appears to have gained length off the tee.

What will do Ko if she does retire at 30? She is already enrolled with a South Korean university where she studies psychology via correspondence.

"Psychology is something I've always been interested in,’’ Ko said in 2015.

``It's something I could connect with (through) golf and sport.

``There are so many varieties of psychology -- there's the biology part, there's treatment. There's so many things I didn't realise (about it)," she said.

One thing I have noticed is that Ko is very relaxed on the golf course. She is one of the few players who smiles walking down the fairway and is often seen congratulating others on their wins.

May the smiles continue for at least another six years, or maybe in to her sixties.