Should you’re ever looking for out who the youngest participant ever to do something was in ladies’s golf, simply guess Lydia Ko. You’ll virtually positively be proper.
The reigning Girls’s Open and Olympic champion was the youngest world no.1 throughout all the sport at 17 and have become the youngest ever feminine main winner at 18.
4
Now 28, she is already within the LPGA Corridor of Fame and a Dame in her native New Zealand. Once more, making her the youngest individual to do each of these issues.
Ko is simply on a unique life timeline to everybody else. So maybe it shouldn’t be a shock that she remains to be fascinated with retiring quickly – even when she is the present world no.3.
“I truthfully do not know when my final occasion goes to be,” she instructed talkSPORT forward of the Girls’s Open beginning on Thursday.
“I do have extra of the liberty of what tournaments I wish to play versus after I was a rookie 12 years in the past.
“However I feel even when I wasn’t a Corridor of Famer, over time, you simply realise and perceive your physique slightly bit extra. I feel it simply comes with time outdoors of simply my profession as a complete.
“I’ve all the time needed to depart the sport whereas I nonetheless find it irresistible or nonetheless take pleasure in it. As a result of I do not wish to cease taking part in as a result of I simply purely do not prefer it anymore.
“Golf has given me lots in my life and made me expertise so many various issues that I most likely would not have if I wasn’t a golfer. So I do not wish to step away as a result of I do not even wish to see my golf golf equipment anymore.
“So I feel the ambition is that I wish to retire after I’m nonetheless taking part in nicely, and I nonetheless have the eagerness for the sport. And I am not likely positive precisely when that point goes to be, but it surely’s nearer than the beginning.”
Her fellow Open champion on the boys’s facet – Scottie Scheffler – attracted a lot consideration for questioning whether or not being actually good at golf truly fulfils him.
Ko has been banging that drum for years – and she or he knew precisely what Scheffler meant.
4
“Scottie is an unbelievable athlete and unbelievable golfer, but it surely simply looks like he is an important individual and he is actually right down to earth and has an important perspective,” Ko mentioned.
“Sure, as a competitor, he desires to be the perfect golfer he could be. And I imply, he is exhibiting that proper now, however he would moderately be an excellent father or good husband. And I feel that simply reveals what sort of individual he’s.
“For me, assembly my husband was a change for me the place I realised there was extra to life than simply golf.
“My household has all the time been actually invested in golf as nicely. So I feel golf has been the centre of every thing in our lives.
“However now assembly my husband, he is given me a brand new perspective to know that there’s a lot extra on the market.
“As troublesome as it could appear, the rating I shoot on the golf course does not replicate who I’m as an individual. So I feel he has made me realise that.
4
“And nonetheless, to this present day, I am nonetheless studying that and making an attempt to embrace that extra. However I feel he was actually the massive key for me.”
Ko’s husband occurs to be from probably the most highly effective enterprise households in South Korea.
Jun Chung, who met Ko in 2020 and married her in 2022, is the son of Hyundai Card vice-chairman and CEO Ted Chung.
With a bachelor’s diploma in philosophy from the Claremont McKenna School in California, it is a man who is aware of the best way to juggle work with different pursuits.
When requested what retirement would appear to be for her, Ko mentioned: “Being slightly bit extra settled at one place and spending time with household and spending extra time with my husband as nicely, as a result of I really feel like we’re nonetheless courting, with me taking part in and him having a full-time job.
“This week is the primary time he is come out and watched me play this yr. So I want to expertise what it is like simply being at dwelling. He would possibly inform me to exit slightly bit if he sees me an excessive amount of.
“However I feel generally if you happen to do not expertise what’s regular to you, you wish to expertise one thing else.”
Lydia Ko achievements
- LPGA Corridor of Fame: 2024
- LPGA Participant of the Yr: 2015, 2022
- LPGA Rookie of the Yr: 2014
- LPGA Vare Trophy (scoring title): 2021, 2022
- LPGA cash chief: 2015, 2022
- Race to the CME Globe champion: 2014, 2015, 2022
- World No. 1: 125 weeks
- Olympic medals: Gold (2024 Video games), silver (2016), bronze (2020)
What’s left for Lydia Ko?
Ko gained two main titles fairly shortly however needed to wait eight years for the third at St Andrews in 2024.
All three wins got here at completely different majors – leaving simply the US Open and the PGA Championship between her and the profession grand slam.
Between her Girls’s Open win and her defence at Royal Porthcawl in Wales, Rory McIlroy grew to become the sixth participant to win the boys’s profession grand slam on the Masters.
And Ko reacted like a girl who knew what McIlroy was feeling as he sunk to his knees on the 18th inexperienced.
“Watching Rory do the grand slam on the Masters and seeing the feelings and making an attempt to grasp what he might have felt for the previous few years… It is fairly loopy. And it truthfully introduced tears to my eyes,” Ko mentioned.
4
“And that was an inspiration. So that’s certainly one of my targets. However, if I win, defend this championship this week, that is 4 majors, however I am not doing the grand slam.
“So profitable each main, like each completely different main is tough, you recognize, profitable 5 majors is tough.
“So it is like whether or not that occurs or not, that is not going to be the dictator on like, whether or not I retire or not.
“However that’s positively the aim.”