Lydia Ko's love of her homeland was the deciding factor behind her decision to play in next year's New Zealand Women's Open.
The 17-year-old, one of the hottest prospects in the women's game, was weighing up whether to play in an LPGA Tour event in Thailand or to tee itup at Clearwater from February 27-March 1.
In the end she chose to play for a far smaller purse at the 54-hole event in Christchurch, which is co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour and the Australian Ladies Professional Golf Tour. It marks the sixth-straight New Zealand Women's Open she has played in. She won the 2013 event.
Ever since Ko stormed to victory at the CME Group Tour Championship on the LPGA Tour last month, the discussions began with New Zealand Golf and her management around whether the world No 2 would be able to play at Clearwater.
"At the end of it, Lydia was just really keen to play," New Zealand Golf's chief executive Dean Murphy said. "We spent a lot of time with her and talked with her about why we thought it was a good idea and why we thought it was great for her to be here and in the end she's made that decision and we couldn't be happier."
That decision has also prompted further discussions around whether New Zealand Golf could put their national women's open on the LPGA Tour, which would further entice Ko to play at the event every season.
But for now, New Zealand Golf can be thankful that their main marketing tool will attend next year.
"There is nothing like playing in front of my home fans and this makes this tournament one of my favourite events of the year," Ko said.
"I can't wait to be back home with some good friends and family, and hopefully have a chance to win my national open for a second time."
Murphy said he regularly received calls about whether they could push to join the LPGA Tour but they would likely need to triple their purse from $335,000 to north of $1 million.
"It's a possibility and there's been a lot of discussions with a lot of people in New Zealand around that, about possibly building up to that level in the next couple of years. That would be a wonderful thing if we could manage to get to that level," he said.
NZ Golf have an agreement to stage the national women's open at Clearwater until 2016 so it would be unlikely that any change would take place before then.
