Ko’s rivals find it tough to take over

So Yeon Ryu and Ariya Jutanugarn each had a chance to take over the No 1 ranking in women’s golf over the weekend. Instead, all they did was switch places at No 2.

Lydia Ko remained atop the Rolex Rankings yesterday for the 84th consecutive week. She’s managed to stay at No 1 despite being winless so far in 2017 and despite skipping last week’s LPGA Tour event in Michigan. In a season of unusual parity in women’s golf, nobody has been able to catch her.

Ryu was second and Jutanugarn third heading into the Volvik Championship at Travis Pointe Country Club, and there were a number of scenarios in which one of them could have moved to No 1 by finishing near the top in that event. Instead, Ryu finished tied for 56th, snapping a streak of 11 straight top-10 showings. Jutanugarn ended up tied for 21st.

Jutanugarn moved past Ryu and is No 2 in the new rankings, but her performance wasn’t nearly enough to overtake Ko.

‘‘That is not really important for me,’' Jutanugarn said this week. ‘‘To be honest, I really want to improve my game, and go out and have fun.’’

Shanshan Feng of China won the tournament, giving the LPGA 12 different winners in 12 events this year. The last time there were no repeat winners this long into the season was in 1991, so the tour appears to have an impressive amount of depth right now.

Ryu’s performance last week came as a surprise after she’d been so consistently good all year.

‘‘I need to keep playing well to be No 1 in the world and I have to keep playing well to become a player of the year or first place for money ranking, those kind of stuff. So I want to look farther instead of just think about this week.’'