SYLVANIA, Ohio – Lydia Ko doesn’t have a “proper trophy case” in her Florida home.
“Maybe if I get a few more,” she joked.
But she has been staring at her trophies quite a bit lately after the family turned the spare room that housed her trophy cabinets into a gym during quarantine. There are mats on the floor, a little indoor sauna, a Peloton and a view that every day reminded Ko of a jaw-droppingly good run that practically broke every youngest-to record in the books.
Among her 15 career LPGA titles, two are from the Marathon LPGA Classic, which Ko leads by one shot over Jodi Ewart Shadoff heading into the weekend. Ewart Shadoff carded a flawless 63 on Friday while last week’s winner Danielle Kang sits in third, two shots back.
Ko, like everyone else, can’t believe she’s already in her seventh year on tour. Her first LPGA title came in 2012 when she became the youngest player to win at 15 years, 8 months old. Her last victory came more than two years ago.
“I can get into these kind of streaks,” said Ko. “I think the big key for me, it’s more a fight against myself rather than – obviously it’s a fight against the best female golfers, but really it comes to me going against myself and me believing in myself, and if I have those doubts, trying to overcome that.”
Something else has been going on in that gym: She has put on muscle.
A month ago, one of Ko’s trainers did a body fat assessment test. Two weeks later, she said, she was 7 pounds heavier, but her body fat percentage had remained the same. Ko said her trainer has been feeding her protein drinks as she walks out of the gym.
“I don’t drink as many as Bryson DeChambeau,” joked Ko with Golf Channel’s Jerry Foltz, “but I think over this time it’s been a good time for me to really think through on what are my big goals coming in this year. We wanted to get more muscle mass, so that was one of our goals.”
LPGA television coverage for Saturday’s third round has been pushed back to 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET. Live streaming begins at 3 p.m.
Thursday’s opening round at the Marathon was the most-watched LPGA Round 1 telecast (regular-season events and majors included) in more than two years. The telecast averaged 200,000 viewers per minute. And that’s during the week of a men’s major.
Ewart Shadoff’s husband, Adam, is a sports anchor/reporter for Fox 35 in Orlando. When asked what it usually takes for her to get mentioned by her husband on the evening news, Ewart Shadoff said she had to be “at the top.”
“I haven’t been mentioned in a while, so we’ll see,” she said, smiling. “We’ll see if I can get that mention at the end of the week.”
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