Ko to start with Wie
Lydia Ko has been paired with the American player she grew up idolising for the opening two rounds of the first women’s golf major of the year, the Kraft Nabisco Championship in California.
The 15-year-old New Zealander might be preparing for just her third major championship but she is already a drawcard at the top level of the game and has been included in one of the top groupings.
Ko will play alongside Michelle Wie, for the first two rounds in the group, behind world No 1 Stacy Lewis and IK Kim.
The pair will tee off at 4.30am on Friday (NZ time), at Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs in the Californian desert.
Ko has said that Wie, 23, was her idol when she was growing up. They were paired together as recently as the Australian Open in February, when Ko finished third and Wie missed the cut.
Wie’s struggles since she burst on the scene as a teenager have been well documented and she currently lies 86th in the world rankings, 61 spots below Ko, who is also the world No 1-ranked amateur.
Ko, the youngest winner of an LPGA event and a Ladies European Tour event, heads into the first major of the year with impressive results in 2013 – a win, second, third and 14th from four professional starts – and she is again attracting attention in the United States.
The North Shore schoolgirl is one of the ‘‘storylines’’ to watch at the Mission Hills Golf Club this week, the LPGA Tour’s website says, and with a record of three wins, no missed cuts and just two finishes outside the top 20 in 15 professional starts, it is not hard to understand why.
Ko, who is scheduled to front a media conference this morning (NZ time), will not be the most talked-about golfer in the leadup to the tournament, and neither will 2011 champion Lewis, the American who has just assumed the No 1 ranking from Taiwan’s Yani Tseng.
That honour will go to Korea’s IK Kim, who is constantly reminded of a missed one-foot putt for par and the championship at last year’s KNC, which relegated her to a playoff that she lost to countrywoman Sun Young Yoo.