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Remarkable victory
On many levels, Lydia Ko’s victory in the final LPGA event of the season is truly remarkable. She was the 2014 CME Group Tour Championship winner, and took home the inaugural CME Race to the CME Globe, and the $1-million prize, to boot.
Not only that, but she received $500,000 for winning the event. That puts her earnings well over the $2-million mark for the season, and she maintains her status as third in the world. Imagine what she will accomplish once she reaches her 18th birthday.
You read that correctly. In one interview session last week, she was warned not to put any alcohol in her tea, as she is still a minor. And she was a minor when she won her first LPGA event in Canada. She won the 2012 and the 2013 CN Canadian Women’s Open events, both as an amateur. This is her third LPGA victory this year.
After she had captured the title, in a playoff, she fielded several questions in a remarkably composed manner. She has to explain her circumstances to her friends back home in New Zealand. “Sometimes they’re, like, ‘oh my God, you’re a millionaire, and blah, blah, blah!’ But the great thing about my friends is most of them don’t play golf. When I’m hanging around with them, we don’t talk about golf, or the hook I hit on seven or whatever. So that’s what I really love. I can get off the course, get my mind free, and just be a teenager.” Truly quite remarkable.
After she had finished the final round of the tournament, she was required to play in a playoff against Carlota Ciganda from Spain. She had already tucked away a million dollars at that point, but that didn’t seem to have a great impact. “I thought I would be much more nervous than I really was. I said, ‘okay, let’s just hit the fairway and put myself in good positions.’ At the end of the day, I won. So it’s been amazing.”
She has also been named as the LPGA Rookie of the Year. She did not miss a cut last year in 12 events, and she made the cut in every event she played in 2014. She began the season thinking, “Go out there and have fun, have a couple of top-10 finishes, and really just learn more about the tour and what it’s like to play on the tour full time.”
She still is not completely happy with her game. “I think my game needs work in every area. On the day I am hitting the ball well, I wasn’t putting well. So this week my putting really helped, and that’s one of the biggest things I’m going to work on.”
She appreciated visits from her mother, father and her brothers during the week.
Golfers were most impressed with the Tiburon course, in Naples, Florida. There were nasty winds, and a bit of rain. All in all, a great week for women’s golf, and a pretty fair week for the young Ko girl.
Time to head back to Aukland for a little home cooking.
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