Killer finally giggles
15-year-old Lydia Ko writes her own legend
The putt curled into the hole on the 18th green and for the first time in four days and 275 shots, the cold-eyed killer melted away and there stood the 15-year-old girl, smiling, giggling, trying to comprehend what she’d just done.
“I don’t think so,” Tina Ko answered when asked if this day would change her daughter. “She’s going to be the same.”
Maybe, but all around Lydia Ko it will be different. Where she goes from here, whether she fulfils the audacious promise she displayed at the Vancouver Golf Club will, of course, be determined over the next 20 or 30 years. But, from this point forward, it will be different.
You can’t say much for certain about golf’s newest, brightest star. But that’s the one thing you can say without fear of contradiction.
Sunday, the New Zealander by way of South Korea offered up a performance of the ages, majority and otherwise, when she Tigerized the field. That she did this at all — stringing together four straight birdies on the back nine and five in six holes in a bloodless, clinical display of ball-striking — was notable enough. That she did as the youngest player ever to win an LPGA event and the first amateur to win in 43 years, secures her a place in the game’s history.
“It was an honour just to watch her,” said her playing partner Stacy Lewis, herself a grizzled veteran of 27. “Jiyai (Shin, the third member of the group) and I started laughing because every time you looked up the ball was going at the flag, then in the hole. She just had one of those days we all dream of. The fact she’s 15 is unbelievable.” She made believers Sunday. Ko was asked how she would celebrate her big win.
“At the start of the week I wanted to go shopping,” she said. “Shopping’s gone. So maybe something fun. Maybe I didn’t go shopping at the start of the week because I was ready for this.”
Sure. That’s as good an explanation as any.
Ko came into the Open as the world’s top-ranked amateur and left as a legend. The win, of course, raises all manner of intrigue about her future as an amateur and the suddenly pressing decision to turn pro.
But the real world will intrude soon enough. As she held the winners’ trophy aloft in front of the adoring crowd — Lydia’s Legions — the future didn’t seem terribly relevant. All that mattered was this young girl, her talent and everything she’d just accomplished along with everything that might be.
Following back-to-back 68s on the tournament’s first two days, Ko carried a one-shot lead into Sunday’s round, experienced some shaky early moments, then laid waste to the field with a bravura performance on the back nine. She birdied 10, 11, 12 and 13, missed a 12-footer for a fifth straight birdie on 14, then stuck in the dagger with a nerveless 12-footer on 15.
On 17, she finally allowed herself to look at the leaderboard.
“Today I said I’ve got nothing to lose,” she said. “I already had the leading amateur in the bag.
“And, yeah, it was really hard and I purposely looked on 17 so I could see where I was positioned. I saw there was actually like a four- or five-shot gap.”
And low amateur, apparently, was safe.
The margin of victory was all the more astounding because Ko had come to Vancouver fighting her swing and assorted gremlins. She was then hooked up with local pro Scott Rodgers through mutual acquaintance Andrew Wylie in New Zealand and an emergency session was set up last weekend at the Vancouver Golf Club.
Rodgers would offer a few encouraging words and a couple of suggestions but he was also aware he was watching Mozart in spikes.
“She’s a phenomenal kid,” said Rodgers. “She’s very mature but she loves golf and has a lot of fun on the golf course. Things don’t faze her. She expects to play well and that’s what she did.”
Rodgers also played a role in lining Ko up with Brian Alexander, the 63-year-old VGC member who served as her caddy and personal Yoda around his home track. After watching Ko’s practice sessions, Rodgers had a conversation with Alexander day the before the tournament started.
“I asked him if he’d be comfortable in the lead on Sunday,” Rodgers said. “You watch people for so long, then you start believing what you’re seeing.”
Turns out he just got the jump on the rest of the golf world. By Sunday, everyone else was seeing the same thing.