A Breakout Season for Lydia Ko, a Low
NAPLES, Fla. - Eleven days after Tiger Woods won the Masters in his first full season on the PGA Tour, an 8-pound, 8-ounce girl was born in Seoul, South Korea. Seventeen years later, Lydia Ko provided further evidence that the game's next transcendent player, the crown prince to Woods's king, may in fact be a princess.
On Sunday, in the last event of her first full season as a card-carrying member of the L.P.G.A. Tour, Ko recorded a four-under 68 in the Tour Championship at Tiburon Golf Club to secure the inaugural $1 million bonus awarded to the season's points leader and catapult herself into a three-person playoff, which she won with a par on the fourth extra hole to pocket the $500,000 first-place prize. Her combined payday was the richest in the tour's history.
It was Ko's fifth victory in 42 L.P.G.A. starts and her third since making her professional debut in the United States at this event last year. Ko, also the youngest to win Rookie of the Year honors, held off Julieta Granada, who bowed out with a bogey on the second hole of sudden death, and Carlota Ciganda, who was seeking her first L.P.G.A. victory.
Nobody has won five professional golf tournaments before turning 18. Ko, whose family immigrated from South Korea to New Zealand, where her love of golf took root, is the youngest millionaire in L.P.G.A. history, with her Sunday payday effectively doubling her season earnings coming into this week.
Peerless in golf, Ko is the same age as Wayne Gretzky when he signed a $1.75 million contract with the Indianapolis Racers of the World Hockey Association; the same age as Bob Feller when he made his major league pitching debut for the Cleveland Indians; and the same age as Kobe Bryant when he was drafted in the first round by the Charlotte Hornets and traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
No wonder Time magazine in April chose Ko as one of its 100 most influential people.
'To come up with three wins is an amazing year,' Ko said.
On any given Sunday, you can find people straining more to start their lawn mowers than Ko is in closing out a tournament. Her swing and her putting stroke are as hypnotic as a swinging pocket watch. How consistent is she? The 18th hole was used for sudden death, and the second time Ko negotiated it, her drive came to rest within inches of the divot from her first effort. She did not miss a fairway all day and missed one green.
Ko's low-key game mirrors her personality. The most nervous she got all week was when she had to stand before a crowd of several hundred in a hotel ballroom Thursday night and deliver a speech.
'I think I should have had a shot of vodka before I came up here,' Ko joked after reaching the microphone. She went on to make fun of herself by thanking all the caddies she has employed this year and ticking off the seven names. The last three names were drowned out by the room's laughter.
If the worst criticism that can be leveled against Ko is that she has trouble committing to one caddy, then she is probably all right.
'I really want to have someone long-term,' Ko said later in the week. 'It's not my plan in having multiple caddies.'
Goodness, no. That might get people's attention. And what sets Ko apart is nothing about her is outwardly flashy. She came into this week ranked 19th in driving accuracy, 66th in driving distance, 28th in putting and seventh in greens in regulation. Her most eye-popping statistic is one that only true connoisseurs of the game tend to savor: she has never missed a L.P.G.A. cut as an amateur or as a pro.
She even dresses in a way that doesn't elicit attention, favoring primary colors while her fellow competitors explore the cerises and electric limes in the Crayola box. She wore solid blue pants on Sunday, but pushed her comfort zone by wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt.
Coming into the week, Ko was one of three players who were assured the $1 million bonus, which counts as unofficial money in the season standings, with a victory. The other two were Stacy Lewis and Inbee Park.
While Lewis and Park were denied the grand prize, they walked away with lovely consolation gifts. Park, who finished tied for 24th at even par 288, finished No. 1 in the world for the second consecutive year. Lewis, the world No. 2, tied for ninth at four-under to become the first player since Betsy King in 1993 to claim the award trifecta of Player of the Year, the Vare trophy for the lowest scoring average (69.532) and the L.P.G.A. official money title with earnings of $2,539,039.
'I think the last 10 years it's gotten really hard to win these awards,' Lewis said. 'There are so many great players from all over the world.'
For two years, the L.P.G.A. has been trumpeting the rivalry between Lewis and Park as the best in the game. But there is a budding rivalry that could blossom into a bountiful bouquet for the L.P.G.A.: Ko versus Charley Hull, the 18-year-old wunderkind of the Ladies European Tour. Hull, who starred for Europe in last year's Solheim Cup, is third on the European tour's Order of Merit and is entered in the final stage of L.P.G.A. qualifying.
'I think it will be cool,' Ko said. It was the most excited she sounded all week.
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