Having joined the organization back in 2014, Lydia Ko doesn’t often find herself in unfamiliar territory anymore on the LPGA Tour.

With 23 wins, several season-long awards, a spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame and three different shades of Olympic medal on her professional golf resume, there isn’t much the New Zealander hasn’t seen or done at this point in her illustrious career, what’s been one of the more successful tenures in the modern era of the women’s game.

But last week in the Republic of Korea, Ko did something entirely new, competing on the first-of-its-kind World Team at the Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown alongside Canada’s Brooke Henderson, Chinese Taipei’s Wei-Ling Hsu and England’s Charley Hull.

The World Team was comprised of athletes from four regions whose home country did not already have a team in the competition, and the squad ultimately finished third at New Korea Country Club after winning the consolation match on Sunday afternoon over the Japan Team.

And while the World Team was a bit disappointed to not win in their first year existing as part of the eight-team roster at the International Crown, their third-place result was still one that Ko was incredibly proud of, particularly considering it was the first time she and Henderson, specifically, had teed it up in that kind of event as pros.

“It was such a fun week. I had great teammates,” Ko said after finishing up the International Crown last week. “I think the chemistry was really good, especially considering this was our first time that the four of us have really played together. We had a lot of positive energy in the team room with our caddies. It's just all in all been a great week.”

The 23-time winner often competes alongside Danielle Kang for the Dow Championship, which is the only annual LPGA Tour stop on the current schedule that features a team-play format. But outside of that, much of her experience in team events had come when she was an amateur, as Ko most notably represented New Zealand in the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship in both 2010 and 2011.

And after watching several of her LPGA Tour counterparts have the opportunity to play for their countries in both the Hanwha LIFEPLUS International Crown and the Solheim Cup over the years, the 28-year-old was delighted to finally check that milestone off her professional golf bucket list and help pave the way for future iterations of World Teams in the biennial team competition.

“The way it was before, I felt like there were a lot of players, not just myself, but others that were kind of left out of it,” Ko said. “(The International Crown) is our version of something like a Presidents Cup, something different to a Solheim. I think it was a great initiative to have the World Team, and I had a blast.”

Ko has ridden that positive energy straight into this week’s Maybank Championship, what is her second appearance in the third-year LPGA Tour event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The three-time major champion opened with a near-perfect, 6-under 66 on Thursday at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club, putting one bogey and seven birdies on her scorecard to share fourth and sit two strokes off leader Hye-Jin Choi’s pace after round one.

Ko got off to a quick start early in the first round, picking up a pair of back-to-back birdies on the par-4 2nd and par-5 3rd holes to move to 2-under. She climbed to 3-under with a birdie on the fifth, parring her next four holes before carding her fourth birdie of the day on No. 10.

The 2025 HSBC Women’s World Championship winner nabbed another birdie on 12, but she erased that effort with a bogey on 13, once again at 4-under with five holes remaining. Ko then made two more birdies coming down the stretch on the 16th and 18th holes at Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club to finish her Thursday with a 66, her lowest first-round score on the LPGA Tour since she opened with a 65 at the 2024 Amundi Evian Championship.

“I felt like I stayed really patient and tried to stay cool out there,” Ko said. “Obviously, playing good golf is important, but I think keeping your energy levels from hole 1 to 18 is just as important. I felt like I did that pretty well. I am excited to rest up and be energized for the next few days.”

This is Ko’s 15th official event of the 2025 LPGA Tour season, and along with her victory in Singapore, she has tallied three other top-10 results so far this year, the most recent of which she earned in August by tying for fifth at the CPKC Women’s Open in Canada. She played in the inaugural edition of the Maybank Championship back in 2023 and will be working to improve upon the T11 performance she turned in that week in Kuala Lumpur, a goal Ko has already set herself up to meet after a solid first-round showing.

But regardless of what happens over the next 54 holes, the New Zealander is relishing this latest opportunity to compete in front of a slew of Malaysian fans, already feeling an incredible amount of love from the local contingency, one who always takes full advantage of the chance to walk alongside some of golf’s greatest talents when the LPGA Tour gets to town.

“I didn't come here last year, but I got a lot of love when I played in '23 despite it being a year where I really didn't perform well that whole season,” Ko said of the fans. “Every time I come back, the fans have rooted me on. That's one of the best things about playing in Asia, and especially this part of the world. They love seeing us. I know it's a once-a-year kind of thing, so it's as exciting for them as much as us. I think from our player perspective, we just try to put on a good show for them.”

After Playing on First-Ever World Team at International Crown, Lydia Ko Contending Early in Malaysia

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