NAPLES - If Lydia Ko is overwhelmed by what’s up for grabs this week, she sure hasn’t let on.

Credited for having a wisdom and maturity well beyond her years, the 18-year-old infused a bit of youthful energy in her meeting with the media Tuesday at the CME Group Tour Championship. Seemingly content with her historic season, Ko made light of this week’s significance and the multiple awards – Player of the Year, Vare Trophy, Race to the CME Globe and money title – that could all be hers come Sunday.

“It’s been a really fun season, had a lot of great things happening and things that really surprised me along the way, too,” said Ko. “Even if the season doesn’t end the way exactly I want it to, I can’t do much about it, and I feel like there’s still a lot of positives from this year that I can take.”

As defending champion, Ko reflected back on her win in Naples last year, defeating Carlota Ciganda and Julieta Granada in a four-hole playoff for the win that left her showered in champagne on the 18^th green.

“It’s great to come back, and the best part was I pulled out my yardage book from last year, and I had to kind of rip the pages apart because of the champagne, the pages stuck together. So that’s not a bad thing to happen,” Ko said laughing.

Ko took home the $1.5 million dollar payday that came with capturing both the Championship and the season long Race to the CME Globe, clearly unaffected by her new found fortune.

“It did impact my mom, because she finally got the purse she wanted,” Ko joked. “No, I mean it would have been cool if we had that million dollar box itself. Yeah, that would have been really cool. That’s what a lot of people ask me, hey, did you get that box full of cash, and I was like no. I remember last year they had a security guard for the money, not for us.”

After her win, Ko took one of her longest breaks away from the game and didn’t pick up a club for more than a month, leaving her game in a state she found laughable once returning to work in January with instructors David Leadbetter and Sean Hogan.

“I was eating, going to the mall, watching a movie, and I was just doing that teenager life. And then when I came back, David looked at my swing and he said whoa, that doesn’t look too good,” Ko laughed. “I was shanking maybe one out of 20. Like it was not pretty. It’s not something that I would recommend be on Golf Channel or anything. It wasn’t nice.”

The remainder of her season was nothing to laugh at, capturing five wins, including her first major championship, ascending to the No.1 spot in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings and positioning herself to win it once again with a victory on Sunday.

“I’m going to try and concentrate on my game, and I think that’s what Inbee is going to do, and I think that’s what every other player is going to do. The top nine has a chance to win the race, so it necessarily doesn’t mean it’s going to be Inbee or me or Stacy it could be somebody else. So you just never know.”

Either way, Ko has had a season to smile about.

A Lighthearted Lydia Ko Laughs With the Media Tuesday at the CME Group Tour Championship

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