PROVEN PLACE

Lydia Ko has proven in her play to like the track at Miramar Golf and Country Club, site of this week’s Fubon LPGA Taiwan Championship. Ko won her first event as a professional here at the 2013 Swinging Skirts World Ladies Masters just a month after making her pro debut at the CME Group Titleholders. Swinging Skirts was then a TLPGA event before becoming an LPGA Tour stop in San Francisco.

“I had my first professional win as a pro here for the Swinging Skirts,” said Ko. “This golf course I think brought up a lot of great memories.”

Ko returned to Miramar last year when this event changed locations and finished third behind Stacy Lewis and Inbee Park.

“They changed up the course a little bit, kind of narrowed the fairways, put the will you have in a little closer. So I think that’s definitely going to make it a lot tougher. But I’ve just got to have fun out here and I know that it can blow here, so you’ve got to be I think very creative and in some ways you have to play aggressive and then vice versa.”

HARDER THAN IT LOOKS

Stacy Lewis reevaluated her short-term goals and went from keeping the lofty expectation of winning week in and week out to just appreciating playing good golf. Lewis has every right to believe she’ll have a chance to break into the winner’s circle each time she tees it up and has had at least three victories in her past three seasons on Tour. She’s winless in 2015 and has realized that it’s not a bad thing to understand actually how hard it is to win on Tour. There are only five multiple winners on Tour this year and only two with three or more victories, Lydia Ko and Inbee Park.

“More than anything, I want to play good golf,” said Lewis. “I mean, that’s the biggest thing. You know, there’s so many good players right now and people playing good golf. It’s so hard to win and I don’t think that’s what people don’t quite realize is how hard it is to win. People think you get in the last group and it should be automatic. But it doesn’t. I mean, sometimes you get with people that just play unbelievable golf.”

Lewis is well aware of her many close calls which include seven runner-up’s since her last victory at the 2014 Walmart NW Arkansas Championship. But she now has her sights on finishing in the top-3 in the Race to the CME Globe to have a chance at controlling her own destiny at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. She’s currently ranked third in points trailing only Lydia Ko and Inbee Park.

“You look at what I’ve done this year, I’ve had opportunities to make it a really good year,” said Lewis. “Even as frustrating as it has been, you get a win and it kind of turns a pretty frustrating year into a pretty good one. I’d like to be in the top three going into CME so that I kind of control my own destiny there. I’m just excited to be playing. I’m finally playing some good golf, got some confidence going and glad that I’m playing these next three weeks.”

ON A ROLL

Lydia Ko has reached true form in the second half of the 2015 season and has attributed her consistently good play to a few sporadic weeks off for some rest. The 18-year-old said there was a sliver of doubt of whether taking a break during a wave of momentum was a good idea. It turned out to pay off handsomely.

“It’s been really good,” said Ko. “I had two weeks off after my Vancouver win and three weeks after my Evian win going into the Asian Swing. I didn’t know how things would work out because to have a break is good, but when you’re good -- you go, oh, maybe what if I like played another event, would I play good there again. But I don’t think so.”

In her last seven events on Tour dating back to July at the Marathon Classic, Ko has only finished outside the top-4 one time, a T-46 finish at the Cambia Portland Classic. In that stretch, Ko has had four top-4 finishes and two victories.

HAVING A BALL

Stacy Lewis doesn’t do anything with her game without thought or analysis and when her Titleist golf ball model came off the conforming list at the beginning of this year, Lewis didn’t anticipate a six-month process to fit the next fit.

“I haven’t had to switch a golf ball in six years,” said Lewis. “So I don’t like change; I don’t like making changes. When I do make changes, when I putt new golf clubs in, I don’t just put them in overnight. It’s a process for me. The golf ball thing was on the fly and I just had to figure it out. Definitely pretty frustrating, I would say probably five, six months.”

Lewis is now on her third model and is set on the Bridgestone B330-S after a solid week at the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open when she finished runner-up to Lydia Ko.

“And finally I switched to this one in Canada, when I lost in the playoff to Lydia,” said Lewis. “Since then, it’s been a lot better. Shots just coming off the way I expect them to, and around the greens is where I saw the difference, chipping and pitching. It’s just now I’m trying to get that trust and that confidence back that I lost kind of middle of the year.”

Lewis said a loss of confidence around the greens was the biggest challenge and something she worked hard at regaining.

“I’ve always relied on feel and I lost my feel,” said Lewis. “And that was the biggest thing is to hit a chip shot and think you’ve hit it right and then it goes flying across the green. You start to question your technique and all those kind of things. Just a lot of doubt crept in there.”

SKY’S THE LIMIT

The American contingent has had a good stretch on Tour starting with the Solheim Cup in Germany last month and saw two young stars march into the winner’s circle to start off the Asian swing the past two weeks. Jessica Korda and Lexi Thompson had statement wins in Malaysia and Korea respectively and top-ranked Stacy Lewis was a fan of both wins. Lewis said she believes Thompson’s potential hasn’t even been tapped into yet and that she wouldn’t be shocked to see her Solheim Cup teammate start to dominate the women’s game. Lewis (No. 3) and Thompson (No. 4) are currently the top ranked Americans in the Rolex Rankings.

“I think it’s realistic that Lexi could be the No. 1 player in the world,” said Lewis. “And she can be a dominant No. 1 player in the world just because of the way she hits the ball. I think when her maturity and her short game, when it all kind of catches up with her ball-striking, she’s going to be really good. I mean, she has not even peaked, anywhere close to peaked yet.”

Lewis applauded the performances and thinks it’s good added evidence that the game is in good hands on the American side.

“It’s nice to see the American kids -- I mean, they are kids, they really are,” said Lewis. “But to see them playing well is really good, and silencing the critics is even better.”

Wednesday News and Notes: Fubon LPGA Taiwan Championship

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