What's gone wrong with Lydia Ko? Well, not much, actually

Lydia Ko. Photo / Getty

Lydia Ko's title drought now spans over a year, spawning questions over what has happened to women's golf most dominant player.

The answer might be more complicated than it looks.

The dry spell since last July has ended Ko's 85-week reign at the top of the world, and dropped her back into fourth in the rankings, behind South Korea's So Yeon Ryu, Thailand's Ariya Jutanugarn and American Lexi Thompson.

The easy - and favoured - explanation for her winless stretch is to blame the personnel changes she made, with Ko having changed her coach, caddy and clubs. However, correlation does not equal causation.

While Ko did change her swing coach (moving from David Leadbetter to Gary Gilchrist), her clubs (Calloway to PXG) and caddy (her 10th caddy in three years), her statistics belie a vast drop-off in form as a result of the sweeping alterations.

Ko's key on-course indicators have barely budged from 2016, a year in which she won five times, but a slight dip has combined with a sudden increase in the competitiveness on the LPGA Tour to create a comparatively barren drought for the 20-year-old Kiwi.

Compared to the 2016 season, Ko has barely slipped in most of the key categories. She has dropped from first to sixth in putting average (an extra .4 putts per round), her scoring average has dipped slightly (69.6 to 69.8), and she has improved her driving accuracy.

It's hardly the sign of her game falling apart, and as a result Ko is still feeling upbeat, despite all the changes.

"I've had weeks where I've been really good at ball striking, but the putter wasn't there, and then sometimes the putter is there, but the ball striking is not as good," Ko said during last weekend's Marathon Classic.

"It's just to be able to get the balance, and put those rounds together. The more times that I put myself in position, and put myself in contention, or shoot under par, those are the confidence boosters. I'm just trying to do that, and, basically, I've got my team supporting me and helping me to get myself to be able to play consistently and go out there with confidence."

While Ko hasn't raised a trophy aloft since July 2016, she has earned 10 top 10 finishes in 24 events since that time, and has only missed one cut.

A victim of her own excellence in many ways, expectations have been raised to a place where anything short of world-leading form becomes somewhat of a disappointment. Despite that, Ko's recent winless record is still an extremely good stretch that every New Zealand golfer - and most of the world's best - would gladly accept.

It is also a solid return considering the improved competitiveness on the LPGA Tour.

The competition level on tour has sky-rocketed over the past year, with more players capable of contending every week. In 34 LPGA tournaments in 2016, 19 golfers claimed titles, but through just 20 rounds of the 2017 season, 18 different players have already won a title.

LPGA Parity

2015 - 18 winners in 31 events
2016 - 19 winners in 34 events
2017 - 18 winners in 20 events

That increase in the talent level on Tour can be succinctly shown through one of Ko's statistics.

In 2017, Ko has hit greens in regulation at exactly the same rate as she did in 2016 - a 70.4 per cent clip. However, she has dropped in the LPGA Tour rankings from 31st to 50th - a sign that maintaining the same level of play is not going to cut it in the evolving nature of women's golf.

The LPGA travels to Scotland for the next two weeks, with this weekend's Scottish Open being followed by the fourth major of the year, the British Open.

In a year where a slew of golfers have had their moment on top, surely Lydia Ko's return to the summit isn't too far away.