Lydia Ko pocketed $1.9 million for her efforts, which capped a remarkable 2014 where she achieved nearly everything she set out to do except win a major tournament. Picture / AP
Lydia Ko pocketed $1.9 million for her efforts, which capped a remarkable 2014 where she achieved nearly everything she set out to do except win a major tournament. Picture / AP
On the eve of the LPGA Tour's season-ending Tour Championship, a handful of the circuit's leading players posed for photos with a glass box that contained US$1 million ($1.3 million).
The eventual winner of the LPGA Tour's order of merit - known as the Race to the CME Globe -was set to pocket the million-dollar bonus and only nine players began last month's event with a mathematical chance of victory in the season-long points chase.
The tour's leading three players, one of whom was Kiwi Lydia Ko, had the chance to guarantee their spot at the top of the mountain if they won the final event of the year in Florida. Ko, as she did throughout her record-setting rookie season on the LPGA Tour, played with remarkable consistency at the Tour Championship and at the end of four rounds, the 17-year-old was in a share of the lead at 10-under par.
Ko went to a playoff with Julieta Granada and Carlota Ciganda safe in the knowledge she had locked up the glass box of cash but she made par four times in a row on the 18th hole as the others couldn't match her and she was declared the winner of the Tour Championship.
It meant that Ko pocketed $1.9 million for her efforts, which capped a remarkable 2014 where she achieved nearly everything she set out to do except win a major tournament. She also battled a wrist injury during the latter part of year. That elusive major triumph should only be a couple of years away, while the world No 3 will soon rise to be the undisputed queen of the women's game on the Rolex Rankings.
Ko, who needed a special exemption to get on tour due to her age, finished the season with three tournament wins as she also delivered 12 other top-10 finishes, and perhaps most remarkably, she is still yet to miss a cut in a professional event.
She will begin next year with huge expectations but ever since she rose to prominence she has managed to leap over every hurdle that has been placed in front of her.
Lydia Ko in 2014
• 26 starts on the LPGA Tour • 15 top 10 finishes, including 3 victories • Total season earnings of more than $3.8 million • Winner of the Race to the CME Globe • Finished the season as world No 3 • LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year
Nominees so far Eric Murray and Hamish Bond (rowing) Anton Cooper and Sam Gaze (mountain biking) The All Blacks Sam Webster, Ethan Mitchell and Eddie Dawkins (sprint cyclists)
