She was just 14 years old when, in 2012, she became the youngest amateur to win a professional tournament – on the Australian Ladies Professional Golf Tour. Now 17 and having turned professional, she is third in the world rankings. Lydia Ko is certainly not just any adolescent.
Born in South Korea and raised in New Zealand, where she holds her current nationality, Ko turned pro at 16 after having led the amateur rankings for 130 weeks and won no fewer than four professional tournaments while still in the unpaid ranks. In April 2012, aged 15 years and four months, she became the youngest winner on the US LPGA Tour and in August 2013 she set another record as the only amateur to have won twice on that same tour (CN Canadian Women’s Open). She did not miss a cut in 25 professional events when playing as an amateur. She also was victorious as an amateur on the Ladies European Tour, winning the New Zealand Women’s Open in February 2013.
After her second place in the Evian Championship (a Grand Slam event) in October 2013, she decided the moment had arrived to turn pro.
Professional at 16
In November 2013, having been accepted as an LPGA Tour member in spite of still being under-age (16), she competed in her first event on that tour as a pro – and finished 21st. “It’s not often the LPGA welcomes a rookie who is already a dual champion on this tour,” said the commissioner, Mike Whan, accepting Ko’s application to become a member of the world’s leading women’s golf circuit.
In April 2014, Lydia won her first LPGA event as a pro and her first on US soil (Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic). She turned 17 on the same day she triumphantly raised the trophy. She would win a second title in April (Marathon Classic) and in November cap an exceptional year with victory in the final tournament of the season (CME Group Tour Championship), defeating Spain’s Carlota Ciganda on the fourth extra hole of sudden-death and collecting a half-million-dollar prize.
With those credentials there was no doubt whom would be named Rookie of the Year: Ko.
In the 26 tournaments she competed in last year on the LPGA Tour Ko collected three wins, two runner-up finishes and three third-places. She totalled 15 top-10 finishes and did not miss any cut. She was third on the money list, with over two million dollars in winnings, and her average round was 70.08 strokes, fifth best for the season. She is currently number three in the world, after leader Stacy Lewis and Inbee Park.
In Grand Slam appearances, apart from her extraordinary second place while still an amateur in the 2013 Evian, her best result has been third in last year’s LPGA Championship.
Lydia started playing golf at five when her mother took her to a club in Auckland owned by the professional Guy Wilson, who would become her coach until a year ago, when she replaced him with David Leadbetter – also coach of Michelle Wie.
Extremely disappointed with his student’s decision, Wilson recalled that when he first knew Ko her golf clubs were too big for her and she didn’t know what a driver or putter was, “but now she has one of the best swings on the LPGA Tour”.
Globally influential
Last April Ko, who has signed a contract with the powerful IMG management agency, was named by Times magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Annika Sorenstam, the finest women’s golfer over the past few decades (eight times Player of the Year on the LPGA Tour), has observed that Lydia has an exceptional talent and is extremely mature for her age, as well as being very well liked by both her rivals and her fans. “She is responsible for the growing interest in our sport, not only in her homeland South Korea and adoptive New Zealand but also among youngsters throughout the world.”
Lydia’s main passion, apart from golf, is cooking and – if not a golfer – she would have liked to work in the media, especially TV. Her only self-confessed superstition is to use the same ball marker if things work out well on the green. Her hobbies include going to the cinema, reading and playing tennis. A very normal girl… away from the golf course. On the course it’s a different matter!
Ko’s reflections
If I make a bogey or three putt I\'m on fire inside. But it\'s not like you\'re going to play any better slamming your club or getting angry. So you might as well just keep it in. People say I\'m pretty calm, but I do make mistakes and I do get angry, but I try and not show it.
I\'d love to go out on a Saturday night with my friends and watch a movie, but that happens really like once a year or a couple of times.
Everyone gets surprised because neither one of my parents play golf. Like I said in my speech, my aunt and uncle really love golf, and we visited them, and she gave me two clubs. Like people think when they don\'t know who my dad is, they think he\'s my coach.
Two weeks ago at the U.S. Amateur, my mom caddied, and that is kind of a different feeling, because she\'s your mom and you have to listen to her. It was really comfortable having my mom there, but it\'s also really relieving and comfortable to have someone that knows the course off their hat, really.
Golf is like 99.9 percent of my life, and then there\'s school. I don\'t get much time to go out with my friends.
It\'s never easy playing 36 holes when you are concentrating so much for all the shots.
A 3-foot putt can be more nerve-racking than a 9-foot putt because a 3-foot putt you should be getting in. A 9-footer, there\'s a chance it won\'t go in.
I can\'t say I\'m not nervous at all with media and doing speeches, but I\'m getting used to it and better at it, hopefully.
I have always wanted a dog, but we don\'t have anyone to care for it.
Before, I was like \'Oh my God, I have to do this media, this media and this media,\' but now I\'ve learned these are stages you need to go through. If you play really good golf, you\'re going to get more media attention and more interest in you, and you\'ll get more confident handling it.
I\'ve got a golf scholarship for school, so they understand if I\'m away. A couple of years ago they called to see why I wasn\'t at school, and now they\'re like, \'oh, she\'s at golf.\' Sometimes I\'m in class and sometimes the teachers don\'t realize I\'m there. She goes, \'oh, Lydia\'s absent.\' And I\'m like \'no, actually, I\'m here.\'
One of my goals is to play the Olympics in 2016. If you\'re able to represent your country in the Olympics everyone will understand you as a player and not many people do get to go to the Olympics.
