Lydia Ko back in winner’s circle at Tournament of Champions
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
New Zealand’s Lydia Ko with the trophy after winning Tournament of Champions title at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, in Florida, on Jan 21.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
ORLANDO – New Zealand’s Lydia Ko is a winner once again, opening the 2024 LPGA season by claiming the Tournament of Champions title in Orlando, Florida.
Ko, who led by two strokes after the third round, fired a two-under 70 on Jan 21 for a 14-under 274 total at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club.
American Alexa Pano started and finished the day two shots behind Ko with her 70 while Canada’s Brooke Henderson, the defending champion, was third at 10 under after a 68.
The event was exclusive to players who have won on the LPGA Tour in the past two seasons. Ko was in the field on the strength of three victories in 2022, but she did not win an official tour event in 2023.
Now the 26-year-old has her 20th career LPGA title. She is the seventh to reach the mark before turning 27. The victory moved her within one point, or one more LPGA title, of earning a berth in the tour’s Hall of Fame.
“I think the finish that I had last year, not only winning Grant Thornton (a mixed-team exhibition) but I played really well in Korea and in Malaysia,” said Ko, who resides in Orlando.
“Maybe if I had found the keys that I found then a little earlier, maybe I could have had a better season. If you keep going down a spiral of thinking like ‘What if,’ it’s endless. I worked hard in the two weeks leading up to this event. To win at home has been nice.”
The Kiwi won her first event – the Ladies European Tour’s Saudi International – in 2023 but went winless on the LPGA Tour.
“It kind of went sideways very quick. I’ll not get too cocky,” she recalled.
Ko's lead was not seriously threatened after she birdied Nos. 6, 9 and 10 to move to 15 under before her first bogey at the par-five 11th.
Lydia Ko was a 36-hole co-leader and finished the third round with a two-stroke lead.
PHOTO: AFP
Pano struggled out of the gate, with two bogeys and two birdies over her first 15 holes. By the time Pano birdied Nos. 16 and 17, it was too little, too late. Ko birdied No. 15 before a closing bogey.
Henderson had her best round of the week, with all four of her birdies coming in a five-hole stretch from the No. 7.
“The game plan was to try and climb the leaderboard as much as possible, stick to the game plan. To shoot minus-four in these conditions, I’m really happy with. It was very cold and very windy,” Henderson said.
Americans Cheyenne Knight (69) and Ally Ewing (72), and Ayaka Furue (71) of Japan tied for fourth at eight under. Rose Zhang of the United States started her first full season on tour with a joint-seventh finish with England’s Charley Hull, as both shot 71 and finished on seven under. REUTERS, AFP
