KO STAYING POSITIVE
The 2017 season has been unfamiliar territory for fans and followers of 20-year-old Lydia Ko. The former No. 1 player in the world who won 14 times in her teens hasn’t won since the 2016 Marathon Classic presented by Owens Corning and O-I and has missed more cuts this year (four) than her previous five years playing in LPGA events combined (one).
Ko knows she hasn’t been able to “put all the pieces together’ this year but recognizes there are still a lot of positives going on in her game. Still, she has amassed seven top-10 finishes this season (tied for sixth on Tour) and the support system she has around her continues to be a driving motivator keeping her moving forward.
“I think the biggest key was I had a lot of great people like my parents and my sister there that have said, ‘Hey, it’s okay, we’ll work on it in the off week and just move on,’” Ko said. “With the game of golf, you could miss three cuts in a row and then win the next week. I think day to day it’s different, so you just have to be positive. Sometimes you can’t look at what’s happening right now.”
“A DIFFERENT PAULA”
LPGA veteran Paula Creamer was a dominant force at the 2017 Solheim Cup, going 3-1-0 as a captain’s alternate pick in place of an injured Jessica Korda to help lead the U.S. team to victory in her seventh appearance in the event. The 31-year-old has one top-10 finish on the year and hopes that her success in the match-play setting of team golf will translate to the rest of the 2017 season.
“I look back on how do I bring that Paula to every week because it’s just a different Paula,” Creamer said. “I’m trying to figure it out. I think I know what it is but I’m not going to quite say it yet until I believe it and see it out there.”
Creamer is entering a stretch of five straight events starting this week. In her last three starts, she has finished no worse than T39 with two results inside the top 16.
BORDNER ENJOYING HOMETOWN EVENT
This week’s Indy Women in Tech Championship presented by Guggenheim is a sweet homecoming for Indianapolis native Danah Bordner, who received a sponsor exemption to play in her hometown’s first LPGA Tour event since the 2005 Solheim Cup at Crooked Stick Golf Club.
“To see all the players come back here and enjoy our city, I just couldn’t wait for actually 144 players to come instead of just the 12 or 24,” said Bordner, the mother of two young daughters who is teeing it up for the third time this season. “It’s exciting to share our city and I just think we have so much to offer and hopefully we’ll just continue this run and continue the LPGA to come back to Indianapolis.”
Golf is a family passion for Bordner. (http://www.lpga.com/news/2017-golf-a-family-affair-for-danah-bordner). Her family owns and operates the Pleasant Run and Sarah Shank Golf Courses, located just more than 10 miles east of Brickyard Crossing Golf Course, where her father, Denny Ford, and brother, Ryan Ford are PGA professionals and her mother, Bonnie Ford, runs food and beverage. Even her husband, Steve Bordner, is in the business, working as the head golf professional at Irondequot Country Club in Pittsford, N.Y.
The Bordners have two young daughters, who have already traveled the world thanks to mom’s job. A hamstring injury sidelined Bordner for all of 2016, but while she is making her way back to competitive play, she looks forward to sharing so many life-changing experiences with Taylor and Reagan.
“The things that we get to do, the places we get to go and my girls have seen so many great cities and other countries,” said Bordner, who tees off Thursday at 1:58 p.m. off No. 1 with Lindy Duncan and Giulia Molinaro. “I’m just proud to have them embrace that experience.”
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