Lydia’s ‘dream come true’
alongside the world’s best athletes.
‘‘Having this silver medal is just a dream come true. The Olympics isn’t about [whether] somebody lost to another player. It celebrates each and every athlete and we’ve all won. This week has just been surreal.’’
Ko’s decision to attack the final holes of the Marapendi course paid dividends.
The 19-year-old New Zealander’s putter had been running hot on Friday (Saturday NZT) as she surged into second place two shots behind Park with a third round 65.
Things weren’t working quite so smoothly on the greens in the final round.
‘‘I hadn’t been putting very well today – there were so many that were close but ended up not falling,’’ Ko said.
‘‘Coming down the stretch, I tried to play a little bit more aggressively and that worked in my favour.
‘‘Knowing that Shanshan had been playing great today, and great all week, I thought maybe she might make a birdie on 18.’’
Even with 14 career victories, including two majors, Ko admits the Olympics had her on edge.
‘‘I’ve been dreaming about representing New Zealand since 2009, and being there on the first tee on Wednesday, it brought out a lot of nerves, a lot of butterflies.’’
The butterflies had settled by the time Ko teed off for her final round, but any hopes she had of closing the two-shot gap on overnight leader Park vanished early.
She bogeyed her second hole while Park rattled off three successive birdies starting at the third hole to race out to a five-shot lead.
From there Park controlled the final round as Ko’s hot putter from a day earlier went cold.
Putts fell fractionally short or just slid past the cup.
American Gerina Piller, who started level with Ko, also had her struggles and after the opening nine holes Park held a five-shot lead over the field.
Feng held silver medal position after getting to 11-under on the back nine with Ko at one stage falling out the medals.
But a birdie the 16th moved her back into the hunt for silver before her eight footer at the last took her past Feng.