She won’t play second fiddle for too long

Golfing Super Highway Lydia Ko is not flowing as smoothly as it once did, yet what we have here is not a slump of Manawatu Gorge proportions, simply a slip that can be cleared by drivers, hot irons and a sand wedge.

When the form of a swashbuckling young golfer goes south just when they have the world at their cleated feet, it need not spell the start of the end.

One minute, it’s world No 1. Then they fiddle. Manager, gone. Unproven new clubs, in. Big money deals, signed. Fiancee, dumped. And next thing, all has unravelled and they’re no longer world No 1.

Wait a minute, you say. Lydia Ko was not engaged. You got me there, I was writing about Irishman Rory Mcilroy, whose golfing life has been uncanny in its similarity to that of smiling assassin Ko, who will walk to the British Open tee tonight as world No 5

Mcilroy has shown golf slumps are not unusual, nor are they permanent. He is a shining beacon flashing warnings that changing your golf equipment, your management and having personal woes can send your game into rough deeper than Jordan Spieth encountered at The Open.

Mcilroy went through a patch similar to that Ko is now facing, having changed coaches, caddies many times, her clubs – everything but her parents – as she tumbles down the world rankings to No 5. While Ko has 14 LPGA tour wins, she has not won since July 2016 – her longest winless streak. Golf change takes time, even for the best.

And now the good news – Mcilroy won two majors in late 2014, to soar back to world No 1. Ko has all the physical attributes to do the same, even if the depth of women’s golf is rising as fast as a mid-winter flood, Ko is not in over her head in terms of physical ability. She is young, smart, and apparently injury free.

Golf is a game of small margins. Ko is about two shots a tournament off where she was in 2015, when she was the world’s dominant player (70.057 shots a round on average now, against 69.441 then). She has seven top10s this season, in line with her first three years on the circuit.

The big difference is the zero in the wins column. And why? Her drives are about five metres shorter, she is missing one more green per round than in 2015, yet her putting is slightly better. Her only remarkable drop in form is in sand saves; she was the best in the sand escape business in 2015, now she’s 75th.

Ko has said her new clubs hit the ball higher than those she switched from. That requires new calculations when pondering where the ball will land, how it will roll out or spin, or how the wind will affect it.

Those are not easy adjustments, so there have been nasty surprises, reflected in her missing more greens. But Ko is too good a player not to get the knack of the new equipment, so when she does master the higher ball flight she will be deadly from further out.

Every athlete experiences a slump in performance at some point. The great concern is that the Ko slump is mental, in which case it will be harder to fix. She could grow frustrated, play tentatively, and lose confidence.

Physical slumps such as changing your mechanics or club can be overcome. Mental slumps on the other hand . . . and when the slump is mental and physical, then you’ve got Tiger Woods Slumpitis, which is terminal.