Golf: Lydia Ko ends LPGA season on strong note

Kiwi golfer Lydia Ko. Photo / AP

Kiwi golfer Lydia Ko has ended the 2020 LPGA Tour season with a solid performance at the CME Group Tour Championship.

Ko, who won the event in 2014, has finished in a share of fifth place, seven shots behind winner Jin Young Ko.

The Kiwi fired a final round three-under 69 to end the tournament at 11-under. It was a bogey free round for Ko with three birdies at holes six, seven and 16.

She ends the latest LPGA season without a win for the second straight year but she still recorded five top 10 finishes including a second placing at the Marathon Classic in June when she coughed up a late five shot lead.

Jin Young Ko missed most of the LPGA Tour season and still won the yearlong money title thanks to five birdies over the final seven holes to win her first event of the year.

The South Korean shot a final round five-under 66 to finish at 18-under.

The US$1.1 million winner's prize, down from US$1.5 million last year, is the richest in women's golf.

"I still can't believe it, that I'm here, that I won this tournament," Jin Young Ko said.

Compatriot Sei Young Kim held a one-shot lead at the start of the day and was in position to defend her title in the CME Group Tour Championship, take player of the year honours, win the money title and possibly even move to No. 1 in the world.

But she slipped back to finish five shots back from Jin Young Ko in a share of second missing out on the money but still claimed Rolex Player of the Year honours.

Danielle Kang won the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average.

The win wrapped up a wire-to-wire year in the No. 1 spot for Jin Young Ko, who has held the ranking since July 29, 2019. She moved to US$5,600,824 in career earnings, making her the 71st player in LPGA history to cross the US$5 million mark.

Jin Young Ko played only four LPGA events in 2020 — she competed six times on the Korean LPGA while riding out the coronavirus pandemic at home — but Sunday's win and a check for US$487,286 for finishing second in last week's U.S. Women's Open helped push her season earnings to US$1,667,925. That would have been good for fifth-best on tour last season, when each of the 21 leading money-winners all appeared in at least 20 events.

Today marked the end to the 18-event LPGA season that was cut almost in half by the pandemic and was shut down for 5 1/2 months from mid-February through the end of July. Next season is scheduled for 34 events, starting with the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, from Jan. 21-24.

- With AP