Lydia Ko has gone by loads of changes this yr, and the outcomes since have introduced up loads of questions.
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THE WOODLANDS, Texas — Lydia Ko ended 2022 on high of the golf world.
She received 3 times over the course of the season and claimed the season-long factors race, the Vare Trophy and LPGA Player of the Year. She regained the title of top-ranked participant on this planet for the primary time since 2017.
“This year has been an incredible year,” she stated after capturing the CME Group Tour Championship. “I couldn’t have drawn it up any better. There has been so many exciting things in my life that’s been going on.”
Ko was additionally on high of the world away from the course. She received engaged over the summer time and capped the yr with an extravagant wedding ceremony in South Korea. The couple honeymooned shortly thereafter in New Zealand, and Ko put an exclamation mark on the journey by breaking the Tara Iti course document and sinking a hole-in-one.
Conventional knowledge would say that when issues are working like they have been, you shouldn’t change something. But Ko’s by no means been one to run from change and determined it was time for a shake-up.
At the conclusion of 2022, Ko made two key changes. First she cut up along with her swing coach, Sean Foley, citing “logistical reasons.” Then she gave her caddie, Derek Kistler, a pink slip as effectively. The seismic shift within the make-up of her workforce was a curious transfer — and the outcomes since have been uneven.
She started her yr with a victory at the Saudi Ladies International, however she’s completed exterior the highest 30 in two of three LPGA begins. Her strokes-gained stats have dropped off since her peak. And at the Chevron Championship, she’s in peril of lacking the minimize at a significant for simply the third time in her profession, and for the primary time since 2019. With darkness suspending play on Friday in Texas, Ko sits two photographs exterior the minimize line.
It’s too early to know for positive, however her uneven begin at the Chevron raises big-picture questions. Should we be involved? Has Ko misplaced her edge? Have the bevy of changes been detrimental? The reply is unclear, and it is dependent upon the way you measure success. If you measure it in birdies and bogeys, then it’s truthful to query her selections and the way they’ve impacted her play. But in case you take a step again and think about the consequences on Ko the particular person and never simply Ko the participant, it’s possible you’ll begin to surprise in case you’re even asking the correct questions.
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Consider this quote from Ko earlier this yr: “I think especially ever since meeting my husband, I feel like golf, yes, it is work, and when I do it want to put in my 100%. While I am playing I want to play the best golf I can. But I’ve been able to embrace it and take in the good and bad and just like make everything and the results be like a bonus rather than me trying to force something out of it. I feel very grateful about the things that have happened in my life on and off the golf course, and that’s just a good place to be able to compete as well.”
Some of that positivity could possibly be a remnant of her time with Foley. The GOLF Top 100 Teacher was a psychological coach as a lot as a swing coach, and their work on the thoughts was as necessary because the work on the physique. But it is also an indication of a brand new chapter in Ko’s profession — one which, regardless of Ko’s youth, could also be coming into its ultimate act.
Although Ko is simply 25 years outdated, she is a chiseled veteran within the professional golf world. She’s over a decade faraway from her first win and has seen the peaks and valleys of the professional sport within the time since. Summiting that mountain as soon as is hard sufficient, however to be anticipated to do it repeatedly is a job that few gamers are up for. Ko has lengthy said her intentions to retire when she turns 30, however along with her getting ready to the LPGA Hall of Fame, she’s additionally hinted that would come earlier.
Ko isn’t one to disclose that data simply. With two factors separating her from the Hall of Fame, all she wants is one main title or two regular-season wins, to make the retirement resolution rather more entrance and heart.
It doesn’t seem she’ll must reply these questions this week. A Lim Kim is a distant 11 strokes in entrance of Ko because the horn for darkness blows at Carlton Woods, and the minimize line looms giant.
No matter how the morning goes, it’s unlikely to have an effect on Ko an excessive amount of. She started the yr on high of the golf world, and there she nonetheless sits. Nelly Korda may supplant her as world No. 1, however even with out that accolade, Ko stays unbothered.
When you’ve completed as a lot as she has over the previous 12 months — each on and off the course — not a lot can get you down.
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