Ko’s brilliant shot lifts her to win in playoff
Lydia Ko hit a shot for the ages Sunday at Lake Merced.
Just imagine if she had nearly holed a 231-yard, 3wood shot to win a U.S. Women’s Open playoff. Or imagine, say, Jordan Spieth pulling off a similar feat to win the Masters. The conversation quickly would turn to the greatest shots in golf history.
Yep, it was that spectacularly, ridiculously good.
This was not a major, but Ko still authored a remarkable ending to the LPGA Mediheal Championship. She made eagle on the first playoff hole — after missing an albatross by inches — to subdue Minjee Lee and collect her first victory in nearly 22 months.
Ko’s strength is her short game, an exquisite mix of delicate chip shots and reliable putting. She almost holed a chip shot to win on the 72nd hole Sunday, tapping in to force a playoff with Lee after both players finished at 12-under-par.
And then, playing No. 18 (a par-5) again to open the sud-
den-death playoff, Ko smacked her tee shot down the left side of the fairway. She had 231 yards left to the hole. The ball sailed high and cleared the towering cypress tree she had clipped with a shot Saturday.
This time, the ball landed short of the green and crawled onto the putting surface. The crowd roared louder and louder as the ball improbably tracked toward the hole — and gasped as it trickled past the right edge, stopping about 2 feet away.
Ko couldn’t see the drama from her vantage point more than two football fields away — but she heard the spectators react, absolutely.
“I knew I needed to catch my 3-wood really solid,” Ko said. “I heard it almost tried to go in for a 2, which obviously wasn’t running through my mind. … I didn’t envision making a 3 to win the playoff, but it’s pretty cool.”
Lee had hit her tee shot beyond Ko’s, so she stood in the fairway ahead, waiting her turn. This was match play, essentially, and one of the fundamental tenets of that format is expecting your opponent to hit a great shot (or make every putt).
But this was crazy. Lee watched the ball roll toward the flagstick, heard the crowd erupt and suddenly found herself in a practically impossible predicament.
“So good,” Lee said later of Ko’s shot. “It was perfect, went straight over the tree and rolled straight next to the pin. … To pull it off then was probably the best shot I’ve seen her hit.”
Sunday’s compelling theater validated the decision by tournament officials to flip Lake Merced’s front nine and back nine for the event. This new routing created an awkward closing hole, in many ways — No. 18 (normally No. 9) runs along the front of the property, with noise from adjacent Interstate 280 as an annoying soundtrack.
The motive made sense. The tee on No. 18 was moved up for the final round, making the hole only 474 yards. That tempted players to go for the green in two shots.
Ko did exactly that, to end a winless drought dating to July 2016. She had made 43 starts without a victory, a stunning fall given her previous dominance. Ko entered the week ranked No. 18 in the world; she spent two full years at No. 1, most recently in June 2017.
“It’s a huge relief,” Ko said. “People were saying you’re not winning because of this or that. … I knew my game was there. I just needed to put the pieces together.”
That she did so at Lake Merced makes perfect sense. Ko is not a power hitter, but this course offers a more comprehensive test — and that’s probably why Ko has won there three times, including the previous incarnation of this event in 2014 and ’15.
She won Sunday despite a sloppy, final-round 71 (with four bogeys). Lee shot 68, surging past Jessica Korda (74) to catch Ko. They traded the lead down the stretch, offering a good show culminating in matching, 72nd-hole birdies.
Much earlier, Ko and Korda — good friends who chatted throughout their round — showed uncommon vulnerability. Both players missed the green on the first three holes and failed to make birdie on the first six.
At one point, as Ko struggled to find her game, a spectator shouted, “This is your house, Lydia, you’re going to win.” Ko smiled in response.
A few hours later, she memorably made it happen.