ORLANDO, Fla. — Lydia Ko wasn’t worried. Yes, 2023 was a challenging season that saw her earn just two top-10 finishes and miss out on her title defense at the CME Group Tour Championship. But Ko wasn’t stressing too much about the state of her game as she turned the page to 2024.
In her 11 years on the LPGA Tour, the now 20-time Tour winner has experienced plenty of setbacks, each time recovering and returning to the pinnacle of women’s golf not long after being in the valley. Knowing better than anyone how to stage a comeback, Ko's final result on Sunday at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions should have surprised no one.
After carding four under-par rounds at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club, Ko won for the 20th time on the LPGA Tour, defeating Alexa Pano by two shots to take home the first title of the 2024 season at her home club in Orlando, Fla.
“I thought I would cry but nothing is coming out,” Ko said after the win. “As much as the season was not the way that I would've wanted going into 2023, I felt like I still finished strong. That gave me good momentum for this year. Just like how 2022 was an unbelievable year and 2023 was a huge question mark, like you can turn it around really quickly. I'm just going to keep working at it.”
Starting the day with a two-shot lead over Pano, the 26-year-old parred her opening five holes before picking up her first birdie of the day on the par-3 6th hole to move to 13-under overall. She grabbed another birdie on the par-5 9th hole and backed that up with a birdie on No. 10 to get to 14-under, but Ko made a bogey on the 11th hole to erase that effort and drop back to 13-under.
She steadied herself with three pars on 12, 13 and 14 before striking again on the par-5 15th hole to lead by five with three holes to play. Playing alongside Ko, Pano tried to give chase by recording three birdies in her last five holes, but Ko handily fended off the 2023 rookie’s charge, making two pars and a bogey on 18 to close out her 20th career victory and become the seventh woman in LPGA Tour history to reach 20 wins before age 27.
“This is a great and comfortable way to start the season,” said Ko. “I haven't played particularly that great at this event before, so to go in with a two-shot lead today was a little bit of a comfort cushion to rely on. But I knew that it was going to be windy today, and the cold was going to be a big factor, so nobody was going to shoot super-low scores. I tried to be really steady. There were nerves coming down the stretch, but I felt like I tried to stay as patient as I could.”
Ko’s LPGA Tour counterparts know how important it is for the former Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings No. 1 to have success. Thirteen-time LPGA Tour winner Brooke Henderson was happy to see the New Zealander playing well again and knows that she and every other player on Tour will need to be in tip-top shape if they want to be able to successfully compete against a Ko who is winning once again.
“Lydia is the best. I've always really looked up to her,” said Henderson. “She's such a great person, and obviously, an amazing player as well. To see her back at the top is great, especially after she didn't have quite the year she wanted last year. Definitely got it going now, so we all better look out.”
Pano remembers meeting Ko on a few different occasions as a young fan and has enjoyed the opportunities she has had to play alongside her, particularly relishing the chance to do so during Sunday’s final round at Lake Nona.
“Always a blast to play with (Lydia). She is one of the nicest people I've ever met, and today was a great day,” said Pano. “We were joking around on 18 with my dad that she might have won more times than I've been alive. She's so impressive. I am always going to be a fan of hers. Getting to compete alongside her is an honor and something I've always dreamed of doing.”
With her Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions victory, Ko is now one point shy of qualifying for the LPGA Tour’s Hall of Fame and is just the 29th different player in LPGA Tour history to earn 20 or more career wins. But Ko doesn’t feel like the generational, game-changing talent she has become over the years. She’s just Lydia.
“When you come to events like this and you see so many girls that want to get your autograph or take photos, that's when it really hits me,” explained Ko. “I'm like, ‘Why are they asking for my autograph?’ I feel like I'm just like anybody else here in the room. I don't think I am that special. I'm just lucky to be able to do what I love doing, and the game of golf has given me so much. And if I can inspire one (or) more of these girls to have the dream to play right here at the Tournament of Champions in the future, that's my job well done.”
But Ko has plenty of goals that she still wants to chase, the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame being one of them. And the 26-year-old knows that if she’s going to reach that mountaintop, she will need to continue to put her head down and do the work, something that Ko is more than well-versed in at this point in her storied career.
“I think whenever the announcer on the tee says, ‘Lydia Ko, 19-time winner on the LPGA,’ I'm like, ‘Whoa, I won 19 times. That's really cool,’” said Ko. “To have the first number change, that's awesome. To be part of the small group that has won more than 20 times, to be in that 20 club is really cool. Last year, I was chasing the Hall of Fame. I felt like I could have, with the way I was playing in 2022, I could back it up with another great year. Look where it put me.
“I'm not going to think about it much. I just got to strive to be the best golfer I can. If my career leads me to becoming a Hall of Famer, that's awesome. I'm just a South Korean-born Kiwi playing this game of golf, and who knew I would be standing here and have played in the Olympics and have won on our Tour?”
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