Lydia Ko says winning the LPGA Tour’s Player of the Year for the first time since 2015 would be a “special” way to cap off her career to date.
The 25-year-old world No 3 leads the Player of the Year standings heading into the season finale of the LPGA season at the CME Tour Championship in Naples, Florida – with the winner banking $3.25 million, the largest prize in the history of women’s golf.
It’s been seven years since Ko first claimed the season’s top honour, when she rocketed to the top of the sport as the youngest ever world No 1 in the both men’s and women’s golf at just 17.
Since then, Ko says she’s gone through plenty of ups and downs both personally and professionally, but she’s thankful to be back playing some of the most consistent golf of her career.
“When I look at my nine years on tour, I’ve had seasons where I started the season well, ended the season well or turned around in the middle, but I was never always steadily there from the start to the end, and I feel like I’ve been in that kind of position coming into this week,” Ko said.
“So it’s been a year that I’m very thankful for, and to have my first win this year in my second event was definitely like an extra bonus just because going into the season I wasn’t feeling super confident about my game and wasn’t really sure how it was going to go.”
Ko is also in contention to top the LPGA money list — she sits third with $3.8m this season — and has all but locked up the Vare Trophy, awarded to the player with the lowest scoring average for the season, for the second straight year with an average score of 69.049. There’s also a record $11.4m purse on offer this weekend.
While the prize money and awards would be nice, Ko says even as a younger golfer she always treasured the Player of the Year title the most.
“I remember being in this room in 2015 before the event started doing my press conference and I said … if I could choose the million or the Player of the Year, maybe the Vare, I would choose the Player of the Year.
“Yes, the million is awesome, but I think just to be the best player for that season, those kind of opportunities don’t come very often.
“For me a lot of ups and downs whether in golf and in my personal life have happened since 2015. So if I was to get it, it would just be really cool because it would be like a summary, and all of those moments have added this moment right now. I think it would be more special.”
An added bonus for Ko this weekend would be doing her part in a potential Kiwi trifecta of Order of Merit titles, with Steven Alker securing the Charles Schwab Cup on the PGA Champions Tour on Monday and Ryan Fox in contention on the DP World Tour.
“I actually turned on Golf Channel last week and saw Steven Alker playing,” Ko said. “And I saw how well Foxy has been playing.
“To see three Kiwis and many other Kiwis on different tours, like Momoka Kobori getting her wins on the LET [Access Tour — the development tour for the Ladies European Tour] and now getting full card for LET and the other tours as well ... it’s very exciting for golf in New Zealand. And hopefully this inspires more juniors to take it up and want to be the next Steven Alker or Ryan Fox or me.
“So it would be really cool if it was three Kiwis up top. We’re from far down under and for us to kind of come on all these different tours and show the New Zealand flag, it would be super exciting. But no matter what happens I think golf in New Zealand has grown. Hopefully this is a start of the Kiwis taking our stance in our respective tours.”
Ko is also going through a period of transition after parting ways with swing coach Sean Foley due to “logistical reasons”. She says it wasn’t an easy decision and is thankful for her time with Foley.
“Not an easy decision because I respect Sean so much. And he helped me at a point in my career where I had so many questions in my head that I really wasn’t sure where I was heading.
“He was able to kind of lift me up, and sometimes our conversations were very non-technique or golf-related, and it was just about the mind or breathing or just other stuff outside the golf course. He helped me so much with that.
“So it was more like for this time right now it just wasn’t a fit for the situation, but Sean said, hey, I’m always a text or a call away. He said, we’re friends, but for me, he is more than a friend. He is like a mentor and somebody that I really look up to.”
Going into the tournament this week, Ko is content with her season and where her game is at, regardless of the result or awards.
“These last couple of weeks I’ve been trying not to think too much about the awards and the what-ifs and what could happen because even though it’s been a great year for me and something that I’m very proud of, there are other players that have had phenomenal years as well.
“This season more than any other one there’s so many players in contention, and I think it’s what makes it super exciting.
“I hope that would be me, but if I don’t win that, I may be disappointed at the time, but, when I look back at this week and if somebody said, hey, you’re going to win twice, and one of them being in Korea, I would have said ‘are you sure that’s going to happen?’
“There’s been so many exciting and great things so far. I’ve got no complaints.”
Ko tees off in her first round of the CME Tour Championship at 6.40am on Friday.
Fox finished T19 at Oakmont and heads into a limited field event this week in good form.