Dame Lydia Ko: HSBC Women’s World Championship return helps motivate Kiwi golf champ

Time catches up to everyone, and for so long, it appeared Dame Lydia Ko was the outlier.

Still only 28 years old but a veteran on the LPGA Tour in her 13th season, Ko has admitted that golf is starting to take a toll.

“To be honest, now that I’ve been on tour for so long, my body, I know, is not the same as 10 years ago. So my recovery is not as fast as I think it should be. Sometimes I think the fatigue catches up to me more than where I am mentally. So, I’m just trying to have a good balance of that,” Ko told media today.

Ko returns to Singapore’s HSBC Women’s World Championship, where she claimed her 23rd professional win a year ago, and said she still has no shortage of motivation.

For a player who has ticked almost all the boxes in a Hall of Fame career, including the complete set of Olympic medals, a few trophies elude her. Ko needs a victory at either the women’s US Open or women’s PGA Championship to claim the career grand slam, a feat the PGA Tour’s Rory McIlroy completed at the Masters last year.

“Maybe if I do that, then I might lose motivation like Rory. I’m sure he might have lost a bit of motivation, but at the same time, when a player is that good and is that calibre, I feel like he still doesn’t like losing.

Dame Lydia Ko: "I am really excited to see where my game is heading." Photo / Photosport

“There might be the question in your head like, okay, what’s next? And I’ve had that question in my career at multiple points, and even after winning the silver medal in Rio, that was such a big goal of mine. After that was done, I had lost a little bit of sense of direction in my career.

“I think the US Women’s Open has always been a big star or key on the schedule in any season. I obviously haven’t won that. So that’s always a motivation.”

The Kiwi is coming off a tie for fifth at LPGA Thailand and a fourth in the Tournament of Champions. Two top 10s to start the season (she had four in 2025, including the Singapore win) show she’s tracking well to start the year.

“I think just outside of how many events I want to win and what tournament I want to win, I feel like my game is trending to the point where I know that if I just keep working on it, I’ll just become a better golfer and the results kind of sort [themselves] out.

“I’m honestly excited for the process. I feel like if I do the process well, then everything else is going to kind of sort itself out.

“I honestly am enjoying the work in between right now. And it’s pretty hard to say when you’ve been on tour for 13 years because sometimes I do turn up and I’m like, ‘okay, this again’.

“But I am really excited to see where my game is heading, and that’s why I’m excited for this year. Because I just feel like I’m becoming a little more consistent and stronger fundamentally as the golfer, Lydia.”

Ko said coming into the HSBC Women’s World Championship as defending champion doesn’t change much.

“I don’t think my mindset changes at all. Obviously, I’ve got a lot of good memories to draw back from. And also, [I] kind of know that I can win at this golf course.

“But I think outside of that, my course strategy, like course management, really doesn’t change. A lot of us, it’s literally a year later that we’re here. So it’s a whole new week,” she said.