Huh? Lydia Ko will be puzzled by her form slump says Hall of Famer Judy Rankin. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Lydia Ko and her latest coach are putting a positive spin on her slump this season although a golfing great believes behind the scenes, the Kiwi star will wonder in frustration at where the great times have gone.
An erratic season well short of her best is how most people would see Ko's year.
However, it's well short of how Ko's swing coach Gary Gilchrist sees it even though the former world number one went 26 tournaments without a victory in 2017.
In a Golfworld feature analysing Ko's season and where she is heading, the Kiwi star admits: "I think to me I wasn't playing good because I feel like I lost confidence in myself more than everything that I had changed.
"It's a season that obviously I learned a lot from...the mental aspect of saying 'Hey, get over the bads and kind of move on.' Confidence and patience were probably the two big keys for me...'"
Gilchrist was full of hope however, and said he was in awe of Ko's dedication to the game in all areas.
This included Ko meeting every autograph request after a round, and putting her thoughtful best into media sessions.
This has led Gilchrist to tell Ko to take a complete break from the game for four weeks but ultimately, it is her dedication which gives him so much confidence she will climb back to the top.
Gilchrist tells Golfworld: "It's funny, because you don't really watch Ko and think of her as a high-energy person.
"She's not one to throw down huge fist pumps when she makes a putt; she doesn't show a ton of emotion in general.
"But if you look beyond those outward, flashy ways that some players show energy and passion, you see Ko demonstrates it in a different way.
"We'll be out working,out there for eight hours, and I'll be getting tired and she's just still walking around with her head up, still going at every shot with high energy."
And he says her course management remains a trump card.
"It's like she's playing chess - she'll outlast you," he says.
The feature's writer Keely Levins states most professionals would be more than happy with Ko's season - it included 11 top-10 finishes, three runner-up positions, and $1.71m in earnings.
But after 85 weeks at number one, she has fallen to ninth and was 13th in LPGA season earnings.
Not only did she fail to add to her 14 tour victories, but had a dismal time in the majors with 11th, 59th, 33rd and 59th before finishing third in the Evian in France. She dropped to 13th in the 2017 LPGA earnings.
At the heart of her problems, Ko was 26th for hitting greens in regulation, compared to seventh and second the previous seasons.
Constant changes, to her coach, equipment, caddie and swing gives the impression of a player who is starting to grasp at straws. As the feature noted, she even changed her ball in the final tournament of the season.
Levins details the evolution of her swings.
"When (Ko and Gilchrist) began working together, Ko hoped to return her swing to the form she had started her pro career so successfully with in 2014 but had departed from when she and Leadbetter made swing changes in 2016.
"Gilchrist obliged, working with Ko to quiet her lower body during the backswing and have her clubhead fall back in line with her hands rather than allow the clubhead to drift outside. More recently, Ko has gotten away from the crisp turn going back and has a slight slide motion initiating the backswing that they're working on.
"In re-learning her old swing, the most difficult challenge was the inconsistency from week to week. Where it became most alarming was her performance in major championships."
But Ko says: "I feel like it was better than what everybody else thinks. (Everyone is) like, 'Lydia is in a slump.' But I feel like I played solid. I've had a bunch of top-10s to kind of prove that theory."
Meanwhile Half of Fame member and top American TV analyst Judy Rankin has told AP that Ko handled her slide "extremely well".
But Rankin said: "I can't imagine that she doesn't lay her head on the pillow at night and think: 'What happened? Where did I go? Was that not real?'
"Part of it is just growing up. Part of it is in golf, and maybe all the way through life, I'm not sure you come to that point where you've grown up just enough to know things can go wrong. And then they begin to."
AP reported Ko would be heading to South Korea for three weeks of "fun - mainly concerts".