Lydia Ko, the former No 1, has just turned 21 and with her latest victory reminded us just what a force she is, writes GARY LEMKE in Compleat Golfer.
Two years. Two whole years without a win – and counting.
A career that had promised so much was in meltdown, a former world No 1 struggling to put things together again after being one of the brightest stars to hit the sporting firmament.
At least, that’s the way the circling vultures would have you see things, as they got ready to feast on the carcass.
After all, Lydia Ko was just 17 years, nine months and nine days when she became the youngest golfer to reach No 1 in the world. Seven months later, the 18-year-old produced a closing round of 63 to become the youngest woman to win
a Major. She was truly something special, unique even. She played her first LPGA Tour event at the age of 14 and made the cut in her first 53 LPGA Tour events.
By the age of 19 she’d conquered the world, winning two Majors, 19 times around the globe, including 14 LPGA
Tour trophies, as well as an Olympic silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Just shy of her 17th birthday,
Time magazine had already named her one of the world’s most influential people. In New Zealand, she was spoken about in the same breath as the All Blacks and Richie McCaw. No golfer, male or female, had accomplished that much
by that age.
Then the party stopped. That silver medal at the Olympics was as good as it got for 2016, and 2017 was even worse.
A serial winner had been derailed.
As she struggled to regain the form and consistency that had seen her labelled, ‘the female Tiger’, Ko and her team started to lash out at those closest to them. And, in a golfer’s career, that generally means the caddie and swing coach.
Ko had sacked seven caddies in her rookie year alone, but Jason Hamilton appeared to be ‘the one’. He was on the teenager’s bag for 10 of her first 14 LPGA Tour wins, but was jettisoned after the 2016 Olympics. The Korean-born New Zealander then turned to South African Gary Matthews, but he too only lasted a few months.
An angry Matthews hit out at the golfer after the fallout. ‘I wish her the best, but she’s gone through so many caddies, she needs to wake up on caddie-player relationships. Otherwise she’ll just keep doing it. In all honesty, there is no communication in the whole camp. You never know anything, or are told anything.
I was like, “This is a bit strange; I didn’t think I did that bad of a job,”’ he said.
Matthews, who lives in Dallas with his wife and two kids, had previously worked with Sergio Garcia, Trevor Immelman and Camilo Villegas, among others. ‘I feel like I am the best, that’s how I look at myself. I took the job when she was No 1 in the world. It’s what I strive for and thrive for,’ he said, shellshocked.
The revolving door was spinning with Ko’s swing instructors too. Renowned David Leadbetter was alongside her when she won those 14 Tour titles and her two Majors, but he too was sacked at the end of 2016. His replacement was another South African, Gary Gilchrist, who initially impressed her by ‘ripping apart her swing’.
But, all the changes amounted to nothing and after a barren 2017 Gilchrist too was shown the door. There were no hard feelings from his side and he called Ko‘one of the greatest minds in the game. But, like any marriage, you hope it lasts more than one year to make it work.’
Now, though, in the week she turned 21, Ko is back on the winning trail, defeating Minjee Lee in a playoff at the Mediheal Championship in California, with Johnny Scott, the long-time caddie of Laura Davies, on bag duty.
And that’s the thing with Lydia Ko. It’s the expectation – just like it used to be with Woods. Given what she achieved long before she even turned 20, many simply expected her to turn up at an event – who cared who was on her bag for any particular week and who cared whether she had come with a new set of clubs. She’d changed from Callaway to PXG and struggled. And who cared that she’d ditched Gilchrist for Ted Ho and tweaked her swing. Ko was a gift from the golfing gods, a teenage talent we hadn’t seen since, well, Tiger.
Phil Tataurangi, a former professional on the PGA Tour, said people had the same expectation of Woods at his peak.
‘When Tiger was going through his purple patch in the late-1990s early-2000s he was the victim of his own success. If he didn’t win a Major championship or the Player of the Year title (there weren’t many occasions when one of those two things didn’t happen), it was seen as a lesser year, for the standard he had set. Lydia is in that same category.’
But … Ko is a winner again. And she won in style, making an eagle on the first playoff hole, the par-five 18th at Lake Merced Golf Club outside San Francisco, after hitting her second shot from 235 yards to less than three feet. Despite holding a lead after three rounds for the first time since 2016, she struggled to close it out, firing a final-round 71. Perhaps it was the pressure of that winless streak – 43 starts without a victory.
‘I was frustrated because sometimes I would go into the Thursday thinking, “Hey, I feel like I can actually play really well,” and then I’d miss the cut or shoot over par,’ Ko said after the win. ‘I think it was more frustration against myself from myself. Sometimes self-pressure is the biggest thing where you put a big load on your shoulders. My mom told me to clear my mind, take all the weight off my shoulders and just go out and play. That’s what I think I was able to do this week, which is always nice when you’re playing without fear and you’re out there freely.’
Then the emotion of it all started to sink in. And there were tears. The drought had been broken.
‘It’s crazy because I was three over for the day at one stage and I was able to put my game back together on the back nine. There are a lot of emotions. My whole team and my family have worked hard for this moment, so I’m happy a few of them are here and we can celebrate together. I don’t think I ever cried for the other 14 wins.’
According to ESPN, Ko’s gift was discovered almost by accident. Her father, Gil Hong Ko, worked in education and finance, and her mother, Tina Hyon, was an English teacher. Neither played golf. But the sport’s popularity exploded in South Korea a year after Ko was born in Seoul, thanks to the success of Se Ri Pak, who in 1998 won two Majors as a rookie. Since then, 42 Korean players have won more than 150 LPGA Tour titles. ‘She’s like Arnold Palmer in the way she touched and inspired so many people,’ Ko says.
An aunt who loved golf gave Ko a 7-iron at the age of five. At one point, she hit balls for 50 consecutive days. ‘I think my parents though I should try either golf or ballet,’ Ko says. ‘Thank God it was golf. I do not have the flexibility for ballet. I can’t even touch my toes.’
But she’s been reaching for, and touching, the stars for years – although she has made comments about retiring at 30. ‘I started playing golf when I was five. I think 25 years in the game is a good round number.’ Then she thinks about the Olympic Games … ‘The Olympics might be the only reason I’ll stick around and play golf after I turn 30. I could see me playing in 2032.’
Now that Ko is back on the winning trail after victory in California, perhaps we are going to see her thrive in the next stage of her career. She has already put a couple of tough years behind her and is only 21. She’s dealt with pressure, perhaps not to the liking of everyone around her, but one needs to remember how young she is.
There is a motivational quote from Young-Pyo Lee, a retired Korean soccer player, that Ko returns to when she’s low: ‘What you’re practising now, it’s not for your next event. It’s not for three weeks from now or for later in the season. What you’re practising is going to be for five years from now. You can’t get carried away if something is not working.’
And, if true, that’s an exciting thought for the world of golf and a scary one for her opposition. Because her twenties promise to unleash one of the most exciting talents the game has ever seen.
