Boost in confidence proves a tonic for Ko
Tournament of Champions next for longtime Orlando-area resident
Lydia Ko made golf history as a teenager, but at age 24 does not feel tied to her past.
Ko will kick off her ninth season on the LPGA Tour during next week’s season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions asking herself what’s next, not what if ?
After all, the future once again is bright for the former world No. 1 and longtime Orlando-area resident.
A native of New Zealand, Ko is No. 3 in the Rolex Women’s Golf Rankings after spending more than three years outside the top 10 and enduring a winless patch of 155 weeks.
A victory last April at the Lotte Championship and Ko’s continued resurgence in 2021 followed sweeping changes to her game, periods of self-reflection and outside speculation she was finished as a top player.
“Winning was proof to myself more than anything I could be back in the winner’s circle,” Ko told The Orlando Sentinel. “Last year was a confidence booster ... giving myself belief I could be in that position again.”
The winningest teenager in the history of the LPGA, Ko sacked her coach and caddie and switched golf clubs following a nine-tournament winless stretch to end the 2018 season. A month after her 20th birthday the following April, Ko lost her No. 1 spot as her game began to spiral.
Ko would go 69 starts without a victory and even fall outside the top 50, but reflects on the fallow stretch as one of growth.
“I have no regrets in any of the decisions I made,” Ko said. “Who knows if I hadn’t made the changes would I have played better or worse or the same?
It’s hard to know. It never happened, right? They were all learning experiences for me. I was able to get to know more about myself as a person and a player.
“Every experience, you’re never the same. I’m trying to be the best player I can be now. I can’t try to be who I was in the past.”
Ko’s perspective is the benefit of intelligence, age and a relationship with swing coach Sean Foley since the middle of 2020.
Foley has worked with some of the game’s top players, including Tiger Woods, but aims the connect with players beyond swing mechanics. A native of Canada based in Orlando since 2006, Foley was known early on for sporting tattoos in a button-down sport, including a handful on his wrist signifying compassion, gratitude, empathy and love.
“Sean is more than just a technical swing coach,” Ko said. “Sometimes, I ask him about all sorts of different advice.”
Yet Ko ultimately had to find her own way back to top of the game.
Besides her LPGA victory, Ko won on the European Tour, captured the Vare Trophy for lowest scoring average — highlighted by a closing 62 at the ANA Inspiration — and claimed the bronze medal during the 2020 Summer Games last August in Japan.
A return to the Tournament of Champions for the first time since 2019 also is a bit of a return to the LPGA Tour’s natural order.
A women’s game never deeper or more global is even more complete with
Ko, a towering presence since she was a 5-foot-5, bespectacled 15-year-old Kiwi who burst onto the scene.
Those days as a phenom seem so long ago, leaving Ko more philosophical, hopeful and happier.
“I’m able to maybe enjoy it a little bit more,” she said. “I’m able to accept sometimes we’re going to have not so good days even though we wish we did. That’s all part of it. Who knows when I was younger I kept it more simple, I don’t know.
“But time has flown and I feel like even if I did the exact same thing as then, it would have never been exactly the same because everything that happens it changes you.”