Lydia Ko believes her game is closer to where it needs to be - it’s now just about putting it all together at the biggest major of the year so far.
The Kiwi’s struggles on the course continued at the PGA Championship last month, where she narrowly madethe cut and finished in a tie for 57th, 14 shots behind the winner Ruoning Yin.
In eight LPGA Tour starts this year, Ko has failed to crack the top 30 in seven events, including two missed cuts.
However, the world No 3 believes her recent scoring only tells one side of the story, and she’s confident the results will come in time.
“Compared to my scores, I didn’t feel like I played that bad,” she said of her performance at the PGA. “There was just a few putts here and there and I’m sure a few loose shots.
“I think it’s closer than maybe like a couple months ago, and it’s kind of weird to think like, ‘oh, she just finished 50-something-ish, but it’s closer?’ Like, what does that even mean?
“But we’re moving in the right direction, and it’s nothing new.”
Lydia Ko has struggled for form this year. Photo / AP
As she prepares for this week’s major at the iconic Pebble Beach course, Ko is looking to stay positive - as she has throughout her recent slump - and continues to trust swing coach Ted Oh and her team, even if she doesn’t necessarily trust herself.
“My whole team, we’re just trying to make sure that I’m free and playing aggressively and just enjoying my time out there, and I think that’s most important.
“I feel like when I’m in that kind of mindset, I play the best golf anyway. Just trying to put it all together, and sometimes it is difficult to put all those last pieces together.
“I know that my level of play hasn’t been to the standard that I would like, but there’s still a lot of golf to be played, and this week is a new week. Golf, you can miss 10 cuts and win the week after. It’s odd. I don’t think that happens in any other kind of sports.
“I’m just trying to take it day by day. I trust my team, and I think I trust my team more than I trust myself. I’m just going with it, and I feel like there’s going to be better results and then it’s going to take care of itself.”
If there was a place to turn things around, it would be hard to beat Pebble Beach - the legendary California golf course that plays host to the US Women’s Open for the first time.
After watching the men play the course for so many years, Ko is hoping to play her part in creating more history at Pebble Beach.
“It’s nice to come to a very historic place, a place that I’ve only seen the men play - with the US Amateur, Gary Woodland winning the last US Open here, and obviously the AT&T that gets played here year after year. It’s nice to kind of be a part of that history.
“It’s going to be a tough week. But I tried to watch some of the coverage of the 2019 men’s Open and tried to see how the guys played and try and get some pointers from there.
