Ko needs to trust instincts
New Zealand’s former world No 1 golfer may be wise to go back to the future.
Every now and again Ko reverts to her A-frame swing on the driver.
OPINION: Not so long ago it seemed ludicrously possible that Lydia Ko might join the pantheon of sports invincibles. How unfair of us to muse even for a moment on such a Bradmaniacal whimsy. Tiger in his pomp usually finished second or worse. Golf is a game of frailty and failure.
Frank Keating called golf ‘‘pasteltrousered, pastoral darts’’. And so it is. But golf is also a malicious, relentless scorpion that stings at your soul for eternity. It is Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill. It is Tantalus standing under the tree trying to grasp the fruit that will stay forever out of reach. OK, I’m not playing so well at the moment, but Tiger would tell you the same woeful tale.
And so would Lydia. As she walks the fairways of Windross Farm, Ko knows that the perfect game will stay forever out of reach. There are some good signs. Her short iron play is starting to come around slightly. And make no mistake, it was horrible a few weeks ago.
It cost her a major, if we can so dignify a three round tournament that falls after the fourth major of the women’s season. Ko took a six on two of the par-fives in her final round of the Evian. On the seventh she spun a short iron off the front of the green. On the 13th she clubbed a short iron over the back.
Those are not mistakes that Ko would have made when she was winning professional tournaments as a teenage amateur. The Ko of a couple of years ago would have won that Evian by three-four shots. But her game this year has been a bit of muddle. She is outside the top 25 in greens hit in regulation and her putting has foundered on doubt.
There have been suggestions of returning clarity this week. Ko made a couple of important par putts in her second round that kept her momentum going. And she is hitting a lot of fairways from the tee, although they are too wide for a premier tour golf tournament.
But there is still a way to go. Every now and again Ko reverts to her A-frame swing on the driver. She gets steep and then drops the club to the inside, although most of the time she stays on plane. Ko’s accuracy appears to be increasing, but it is a devil’s bargain.
It is not a dynamic action. Ko is certainly not loading up. Maybe that will come next season because, as I have said before, most of the major courses are 300-400 metres longer than the regular tour events, and Ko will not win a high multiple of majors if she is 30m behind the bombers off the tee. She is currently 135th in driving distance, way behind the top 10.
Ko picked up just three strokes on the 12 par-fives over the opening three rounds of the New Zealand Open. Compare that to Brooke Henderson, Brittany Lincicome, Nicole Broch Larsen and Mariajo Uribe who are all in the top 40 on tour in driving distance. They have gained a collective 30 strokes on the parfives, an average of 4.5 shots lower than Ko. How strange to handicap Lydia with a bomber’s course on her homecoming.
I was also curious to see Ko apparently standing slightly shut (her feet aligned to the right of the target) on several putts. But as Greg Turner wisely said: ‘‘Don’t think closed on putts makes much difference - it didn’t serve Bobby Locke or Arnie too badly.’’
Another comparison worth making is between Ko and Jordan Spieth. Both were phenomenal when they first came on tour. They then ran into problems by their own high standards. Doubts arose and those were reflected in the relative decline of their putting.
Spieth is coached by the Australian Cameron McCormick, who has also taken So Yeon Ryu to the top of the women’s game this season. McCormick said before Spieth won the Open at Birkdale: ‘‘It’s one thing to set your putter down and think it’s in the right place, and it’s another thing to look up with your eyes and know it’s in the right place. Even this week there were some questions in his mind. Therefore, my role here was reassurance on the putting green and our practice sessions. Hey, don’t worry about it. Everything is OK. Chill.’’
Spieth has gone back to the way he played as a kid, gunslinger, step up and hit it. McCormick, who has coached Spieth since he was 12, took the young American back to the simple thoughts of youth. McCormick says if he became the coach of Woods, he would ‘‘shift him into reverse as quickly as I could’’ and try to get him thinking like the 21-year-old who thought he was invincible.
And it is hard not to think that much of the same would benefit Ko. With her changes of coach and swing and equipment and caddies, she is making life way too complicated. Is it entirely coincidental that Jack Nicklaus, Spieth, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy have each stayed with the coaches who taught them as kids?
It is not the be all and end all, of course. Butch Harmon had great success refining Tiger’s game. But when Gilchrist says of Ko, ‘‘She needs to trust and believe in what she has right now,’’ that is so much easier said than done.
Modern golf is a young woman’s game. The top three players in the world have an average age of 23. It may be an odd thing to say, but maybe 20-year-old Lydia needs to find those teenage kicks again.