LPGA.com counts down to the end of 2014 with the LPGA Tour's top 14 stories of the year. Join us as we look back at the year's most memorable milestones. Read about The Year of Ko in Story No. 2.

The youngest player in the field at the CME Group Tour Championship - 17-year-old Lydia Ko – netted the largest payday in women’s golf history, winning the $1 million Race to the CME Globe and $500,000 CME Group Tour Championship before she even has her driver’s license putting the finishing touches on a superb 2014 season.

“This has been a big year and rollercoaster ride,” Ko said after the win while grasping two trophies and sitting on a box full of $100 bills. “I've learned so much this year.”

Most people would gladly wait in line for rollercoaster ride went on during her debut season on the LPGA Tour.

Currently ranked No. 3 in the Rolex World Rankings, Ko won three times in her rookie campaign and finished in the top-10 12 additional times. She’s never missed a cut in 42 LPGA starts and was one of only three players on Tour in 2014 to record three wins. She now has five career victories, two of which came as an amateur. Ko’s essentially rewrote all the age related LPGA records, becoming the youngest winner in Tour history, youngest Rolex Rookie of the Year ever and the youngest to $2 million in career earnings.

“This has been a great year but next year is a whole new year,” Ko said. “Everyone is playing great golf. Everyone is going to be really energized and fresh for next year. It's the same mindset.”

When watching Ko play it’s hard to believe that she is a mere 17 years old. As the New York Times’ Karen Crouse wrote after Ko’s victory at CME, “On any given Sunday, you can find people straining more to start their lawn mowers than Ko is in closing out a tournament.”

While Ko may not need to strain to win tournaments she may need to in order to avoid a razzing from her friends.

“Sometimes they're like, oh, my God you're a millionaire and blah, blah, blah,” Ko joked. “I'm going out there not thinking about it. But the great thing about my friends is most of them don't play golf. When I'm hanging around with them, we don't talk about golf or the hook I hit on 7 or whatever. So that's what I really love. I kind of feel like I can get off the course, get my mind free, and just be that teenager.”

A teenage with a shelf full of trophies, a bank account in the seven figures, and a spot on Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, which she earned in April. It’s fair to say that 2014 on the LPGA was the “Year of Ko.”

Counting Down LPGA Tour's 14 top stories in 2014: No. 2

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