If a gold medal is worth an LPGA Hall of Fame point, surely it’s also worth some Player of the Year points.
Lydia Ko’s magical run of late has been so dominant, one can’t help but wonder if she could possibly edge Nelly Korda for LPGA Rolex Player of the Year honors.
Korda won six of seven starts in the first half of the season and looked like a runaway for POY honors. But shouldn’t three LPGA titles, including a major, and an Olympic gold medal put Ko somewhere close?
Well, not really.
Ko actually trails Korda by 100 points in the POY race with a limited number of starts left to the season. (This week she’s competing on the KLPGA, which doesn’t count toward the race.)
Points are given for top-10 finishes only and are doubled at the majors. A victory at a regular event is worth 30 points, while it’s 60 points for a major.
Ko would have to win three more times this season plus post an additional second-place finish to have a chance. That’s if Korda fails to earn more points.
The Olympics isn’t factored into the POY race but given that Ko’s gold medal-winning performance in Paris is what got her into the LPGA Hall of Fame, that’s a bit of a headscratcher.
If a gold medal is worth an LPGA Hall of Fame point, surely it’s also worth some Player of the Year points.
Nelly Korda of the United States celebrates with the gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Kasumigaseki Country Club. (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
In 2021, Nelly Korda won four times on the LPGA, including the KPMG Women’s PGA, as well as Olympic gold in Toyko but was edged out in the POY race by Jin Young Ko.
South Korea’s Ko won five times on the LPGA that season (no majors) and took the POY based on the strength of 13 top 10s. She beat Korda by 14 points. Had Korda earned 30 points for her gold-medal performance though, she would’ve taken the honor.
Now that Ko is already in the LPGA Hall of Fame, which requires 27 points, it’s not likely that she’ll be too worried about the POY this year. But going forward, the Olympics should absolutely factor into the totality of an LPGA season.
The points system is designed to take emotion and bias out of the equation, and that’s fine. It’s hard to argue with math. But if it’s going to come down to numbers, then it’s imperative that the points structure reflects the current landscape.
There’s plenty of time to get this fixed before 2028.
Incredibly, Ko had only one bogey the entire week at TPC River’s Bend.
Lydia Ko picked up right where she left off — winning. On the heels of an Olympic gold medal and the AIG Women’s British Open victory at St. Andrews, Ko added another first-place prize at the 2024 Kroger Queen City Championship, topping the field by five strokes after a three-week break. Incredibly, she had only one bogey the entire week at TPC River’s Bend.
In her post-round interview with Golf Channel’s Amy Rogers, Ko called this stretch of golf “surreal” and put any talk of retirement on a back burner with a newish goal.
“I think it’s always been the goal of mine to do the career grand slam,” said Ko, who currently owns three different majors. “I thought that would be so out there.
“I feel like I’ve already been part of this fairytale, so why not?”
The newest member of the LPGA Hall of Fame now owns 22 LPGA career titles. She has three LPGA official wins this season, plus the gold medal. Ko closed with a 9-under 63 to run away from former No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul. Ko finished at 23 under for the tournament.
This marks the first time since 2016 – when she claimed the JTBC Classic and Chevron Championship titles – the 27-year-old Kiwi has won in back-to-back starts on the LPGA.
She joins Nelly Korda as the only other player with at least three wins this season. Korda, who finished in a share of fifth in Cincinnati, won six times in the first half of the season and leads the Rolex Player of the Year list by 100 points. (Ko did not receive any POY points for her gold-medal performance in Paris, though she did get that valuable LPGA Hall of Fame point.)
Ko starts the fall season the same way she ended the summer, on a hot streak, extending her top-10 run to her last five consecutive starts, including the Olympics.
World No. 1 Korda will have three weeks at home before heading to South Korea for the LPGA’s BMW Ladies Championship. The LPGA heads to the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, Sept. 27-29, before a four-event swing through China, Korea, Malaysia and Japan.
“I don’t think I had my best stuff, but played some solid golf here and there,” said Korda, who closed with a 68. “Definitely didn’t capitalize on the par-5s. I had a lot of irons in my hands and came out with pars. A little disappointing there.
“Overall, happy with the way I played coming off last week and my energy levels.”
South Korea’s Haeran Ryu birdied five consecutive holes on the back nine en route to a closing 67. She finished solo third.
Ko now immediately heads to South Korea to compete in the KLPGA’s Hana Financial Group Championship. As for retirement, Ko said she’s always looked up to the way Lorena Ochoa ended her career while still playing well. She’d rather leave the tour wondering if she could’ve won a few more rather than reach a point where she feels like she should’ve left the game long ago.
“I don’t know when that moment is right now,” she said. “I enjoyed these past three weeks and it was great being home and not to live out of my suitcase. While I’m competitively playing, it’s good to have goals. The career grand slam seems too far out there, but what has happened the past couple months has been that extent of craziness, I guess.
“So I just wanted to set a goal that was something that I can work towards and whether that’s happens or not isn’t as important. It’s just more the drive for me to keep wanting to put myself in contention and hopefully be the one holding the trophy at the end of the week more and more after this week as well.”
Jeeno Thitikul might have a two-shot lead after 54 holes of the LPGA’s 2024 Kroger Queen City Championship, but her closest chaser is the newest member of the league’s Hall of Fame.
Lydia Ko, who won the AIG Women’s British Open at St. Andrews in her last start, shot a third-round 3-under 69 around TPC River’s Bend in Maineville, Ohio, on Saturday and is alone in second, two back of Thitikul’s lead.
The Kiwi started her day with a bogey but made the turn with an even-par 36 thanks to a birdie on No. 8. After making the turn, Ko added birdies on Nos. 10, 14 and 18 to guarantee her spot in Sunday’s final group.
Thitikul was one better than Ko on Day 3, posting a 4-under 68 that consisted of three birdies on each side plus back-to-back bogeys on Nos. 16 and 17. Since missing the cut at the Evian Championship, Thitikul has tied for 17th at the Women’s Open and finished T-4 at the FM Championship in Boston.
Yan Liu is alone in third at 13 under, three back, while Albane Valenzuela and Haeran Ryu are tied for fourth at 12 under, four back.
Final-round coverage will be on Golf Channel from 1-4 p.m. ET.
Ko has turned on the jets and she’s not slowing down.
Lydia Ko has turned on the jets. And she’s not slowing down.
Ko shot a second-round 66 to vault into the clubhouse lead at the 2024 Kroger Queen City Championship outside Cincinnati on Friday. Coupled with her Thursday 67 and Ko was at 11 under heading into the weekend. Late in the day, Jeeno Thitikul shot her second straight 66 to reach 12 under, so she’ll take a one-shot lead into the weekend over Ko.
“I obviously came off an amazing three-week stretch in Europe,” Ko said. “I wanted to make sure that I kind of came back to the ground and work on the basics and the things I’ve been working on the past few months. Winning at the British and playing well at the Scottish [T-9] and winning the gold in Paris, it wasn’t just the work I put in the week before. Every week it’s been incremental improvement. You hope to pull it off one week, and it happened to be two of the biggest weeks in my schedule this year.”
Her win at the Olympics secured the final points she needed for entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame. Her victory 15 days later in the Women’s Open, her third career major, was icing on the cake. Now she’s seeking her 22nd LPGA win and third this season.
“The golf course is getting firmer just because it is pretty warm out here. Being smart with the club selection off the tee and just knowing which ones I should be aggressive and which ones I should be a little bit more conservative,” she said. “I feel like I set myself a good plan going into the week so that’s what I’m going to stick to. I know there is still a lot of golf to be played so just focus on me and I think that’s the biggest thing that I’ve been doing well these past month or so. So just stick to that.”
Every so often, sport delivers a storyline that hits so perfectly it feels more Hollywood than raw competition.
A solitary champagne bottle lay chilled in a bucket of ice near the 18th green. To the right, three more bottles lined up in the grass. To the left, a bouquet of red and white roses.
When Lydia Ko’s approach shot on the first playoff hole at the Drive On Championship last January came to rest right next to those flowers beneath the grandstand at Bradenton Country Club, it was a cruel foreshadowing of what was to come.
Ko, who got relief from the flowers, ultimately lost the Drive On title to hometown favorite Nelly Korda, who went on a tear of epic proportions to start 2024. But Ko, the player on the cusp of entering what’s considered the toughest Hall of Fame in any sport, needed one more victory to take her place among golf’s most legendary players.
Alas, she’d have to wait. The flowers and champagne went to someone else.
As commentators began to draw up the perfect scenario for Ko to enter the Hall, the Paris Olympics seemed the most fitting place.
Why? For starters, Ko already owned the silver and bronze medals, and needed only gold to compete the set. No one has gushed more about what the Olympics has meant to golf as much as Ko. She viewed a third appearance in the Summer Games as an important milestone.
ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND – AUGUST 24: Lydia Ko of New Zealand plays a shot during Day Three of the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews Old Course on August 24, 2024 in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Ross Parker/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)
Every so often, sport delivers a storyline that hits so perfectly it feels more Hollywood than raw competition. But Ko’s emotional victory at the Paris Olympics proved exceptionally fitting for a career that has rewritten history books and captured fans the world over.
Ko felt like she was living in a fairy tale.
“I woke up, like, was that a dream? Did that just really happen?” said Ko, who pulled an all-nighter after she won and crashed on Sunday.
To win an Olympic gold medal and enter the Hall of Fame on the same day is a feat that, like many records in Ko’s career, might never be matched.
While it looked for a while on Saturday at Le Golf National that it would be a runaway victory, the fight for Ko’s 27th Hall of Fame point went down to the wire on what she called the most difficult Olympic test yet. She won by two over Germany’s Esther Henseleit with a birdie on the 72nd hole.
After the medal ceremony in France, LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan presented Ko with 27 white roses.
“Did I imagine that I was going to do it at the Paris Olympics? Probably not,” said Ko. “But this is definitely the coolest way to do it. You know, not going to lie, I was gutted when I lost in the playoff in Bradenton.”
Gold medalist, Lydia Ko of Team New Zealand reacts on the podium during her national anthem in the Women’s Individual Stroke Play Medal Ceremony on day fifteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Le Golf National on August 10, 2024, in Paris, France. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
Ko became the 35th player to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame and the first since Inbee Park in 2016. Lorena Ochoa got in two years ago after the tour removed the stipulation that required 10 years on tour, but she reached 27 points in 2008. Ko became the 25th player to reach 27 points. Nine women were inducted as honorary members (eight LPGA founders and beloved entertainer Dinah Shore).
How tough is it to get into the LPGA Hall? Consider that legends like Laura Davies, Hollis Stacy, Sandra Palmer and Dottie Pepper aren’t in it.
One of the biggest questions surrounding Ko’s victory in Paris was what comes next for the 27-year-old. Would she retire on the spot or later this year?
That former turned out not to be the case as she went straight from Paris to Scotland and, two weeks later, claimed her third major championship victory and 21st LPGA title at the AIG Women’s British Open. That she accomplished the feat over the Old Course seemed appropriate given Ko’s place in the history of the game.
Would she retire right there on the Swilcan Bridge?
Lydia Ko of New Zealand tees off on the 18th hole during Day Three of the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews Old Course on August 24, 2024, in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Luke Walker/Getty Images)
Nope. After a brief break – that included a celebratory dinner made by renowned chef Thomas Keller – she’s back in action at this week’s Kroger Queen City Championship in Maineville, Ohio.
So much life has transpired for Ko since she earned her first LPGA Hall of Fame point as a 15-year-old wunderkind. Now married and perhaps on the verge of retirement, the Kiwi’s path to the Hall has been anything but straight. While she became the youngest to ever enter the LPGA Hall under its current criteria at age 27, it somehow still felt like a long wait for a player who won twice on tour before she even turned professional.
“Her career is definitely very rare,” said LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer Karrie Webb, “and the fact that she’s had not just — she’s had some pretty big dips in her career, and she’s managed to reinvent herself and come back and win again. That’s a testament to her will and strength of mind to do that.”
As Ko enters the final leg of her 11th season on the LPGA, it’s difficult to imagine that she feels much pressure – other than to decide how much longer she wants to compete.
The newly-minted LPGA Hall of Famer was dominant down the stretch Sunday, capturing her third major title at the 2024 AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews. Ko won by two shots over World No. 1 Nelly Korda, No. 2 Lilia Vu and No. 6 Ruoning Yin for her first major championship victory in more than eight years.
With the win, Ko will take home the top prize of $1,425,000, an increase from the $1,350,000 doled out a year ago.
Here’s the prize money payouts for LPGA players from the $9.5 million purse at the 2024 AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Lydia Ko walked over to husband Jun Chung and tenderly put her hand on his cheek by the practice putting green. The couple, still looking like newlyweds, seemed about as relaxed as two people could be with a major championship on the line.
After hitting a few practice putts, Ko walked over to the falconer who’d been onsite all week and chatted about the magnificent creature whose job at the Old Course was to ward off pesky seagulls. Meanwhile, over on the nearby 18th green, 2023 AIG Women’s British Open champion Lilia Vu tried to get up and down for birdie to force a playoff at 7 under.
When Vu’s best efforts failed, Ko broke down in tears on the nearby practice putting green. Two weeks after winning the Olympic gold medal in Paris, playing her way into the LPGA Hall of Fame in the process, the 27-year-old ended a major championship drought that dated to the spring of 2016. Now a three-time major winner, Ko became only the third woman to win a major at the Home of Golf, joining Lorena Ochoa (2007) and Stacy Lewis (2013).
“I don’t think there’s a word in the dictionary that can explain what just happened,” said Ko, who held off a who’s who cast of players, including World No. 1 Nelly Korda, who doubled the par-5 14th and bogeyed the Road Hole to finish two back with former No. 1s Jiyai Shin and Ruoning Yin.
After Ko birdied the 72nd hole to take the clubhouse lead, Ko’s older sister and manager Sura noted everything looked golden in the Auld Grey Toon. Relentless wind wreaked havoc on the field all week, and rain chucked down late Sunday as the group of stars battled down the stretch.
But as Ko wrapped up a two-stroke victory that not an hour before looked destined for a playoff, the sun broke through as one of the game’s most popular players continued a fairy-tale run of the ages.
When asked during the closing ceremony where a victory over the Old Course ranks in her career, Ko said, “That’s kind of like saying ‘Do you like your mother better or your father?’”
The crowd roared.
This was the most unlikely major title for Ko to claim, given that she’d only had two top-10 finishes at the Women’s Open over the course of her career and had only recently learned how to embrace the quirkiness of links golf. There were times this week when Ko found she could do nothing but laugh at the absurdity of shots hit in wind so blustery it was tough to stand.
Ko was still a teenager when she won the ANA Inspiration, now Chevron, eight years ago. It was so long ago, in fact, the only thing she remembers about the day is holding her nose as she jumped into Poppie’s Pond.
Now a 21-time winner on the LPGA, Ko has been brutally honest in recent years about the valleys of her career. Even this week, she recalled a time last year in Portland when, after missing a cut, she couldn’t taste the barbecue she was eating with Sura because there were so many tears. She felt lost.
That’s why when the two sisters embraced in Paris and in St. Andrews, it was so emotional.
“I was emptied out so much in Paris,” said Sura.
Ko’s husband Jun was sad he couldn’t go to Paris and soaked up every second of St. Andrews. He picked up the game during Covid, and his passion for golf rubbed off on Ko, who agreed to tee times on their honeymoon and even caddied for him last year in an amateur tournament. Jun had his own tee times this week, playing Kingsbarns and Dumbarnie Links after spectating duties were over. He even took a tour of the R&A museum.
When Ko had an early tee time this week, Jun, who works for a tech start-up company in San Francisco, was up at 4 a.m., stretching alongside her. With a late tee time Sunday, Jun said they slept in and then watched some Kiwi golf influencers they like on YouTube to kill time.
“What I admire a lot about her is her grit,” said Jun. “I’ve never seen such a strict routine.
“I work in tech, and I see CEOs a lot of times… the grit she has doesn’t compare to anything I’ve ever seen.”
Coming down the stretch in driving rain and wind, Ko showed that Hall of Fame grit when she hit a stunning 3-wood into the Road Hole that set up a par-birdie finish that couldn’t be beat.
The last time the LPGA was in St. Andrews, a bespectacled Ko won the Smyth Salver for low amateur honors as Lewis claimed the title. So much life has transpired since that moment. So much growth.
This will likely be the last time Ko competes at the Home of Golf, and it’s appropriate to wonder how many more major starts are on the horizon for one of the best to ever play the game.
With a 5:50 a.m. flight on tap for Monday morning, Ko hadn’t planned much in the way of celebrations. They’d talked about having Thai food Sunday evening, but she worried the restaurant might have closed.
“Most of the time, I eat a burger after Sunday’s round,” she noted, “so there’s a high chance I’m going to do that.”
Sunday in St. Andrews will be a generational battle.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Jiyai Shin won her first AIG Women’s British Open 16 years ago. At age 36, she’s the winningest player left in the field on the Old Course, where she leads defending champion Lilia Vu by one stroke, World No. 2 Nelly Korda by two and the LPGA’s newest Hall of Fame member, Lydia Ko, by three.
Sunday in St. Andrews will be a generational battle. Shin has won more than 60 titles worldwide. She left the LPGA at the peak of her game in 2014, taking her talents to Japan, where she’s now won 30 times. Her career began close to home on the Korean LPGA, where she won 21 times, and kicked into another gear when she won 11 times from 2008-2013.
A rookie on the LPGA in 2009, Shin set goals for the next decade, but reached them all in short order. She struggled to find her next step and motivation.
That’s when she decided she needed a change, and joined the Japan LPGA to be closer to family. She worried about disappointing her fans, but then she met new fans.
“I had a great decision,” said Shin, who wants to be a mentor to younger players the way so many were for her all those years ago.
South Korea’s Jiyai Shin smiles on the 17th tee on day three of the 2024 Women’s British Open Golf Championship on the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland. (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)
Count Ko, 27, among those who look up to Shin, marveling at her 6:30 a.m. practice round earlier this week and the way she pushed herself in the gym.
It was Shin who played alongside Ko when she won the Canadian Women’s Open at age 15, a dozen years ago.
“I think that takes not only a lot of work ethic but passion towards the game in what she does,” said Ko, who called Shin’s decision to leave the LPGA in her prime courageous.
Ko comes into Sunday’s final round a little lighter than most, given that she played her way into the Hall by virtue of a storybook victory at the Paris Olympics. That’s not to say she isn’t still “greedy” about wanting to win more, but there’s certainly nothing left to prove.
“It’s definitely nice to know that I can go back to my room, and even if I have a bad day, there’s a gold medal, you know, waiting for me,” said Ko, who smiled and then quickly added, “and my husband.”
Korda closed with a birdie to stop the bleeding on a back nine that included two bogeys and a double. She led by as many as three on a sunny but windy day at the Home of Golf but dipped to third after a disappointing 75.
The last player to win seven times in a season, including multiple majors, was Yani Tseng in 2011. The last American player to do so was Kathy Whitworth in 1967.
Tseng’s 2011 British Open victory at Carnoustie was the last time a player won in back-to-back years in this championship. Vu has a chance to pull off the same on Sunday as she vies for a third career major title.
Lilia Vu of the United States tees off on the 14th hole during Day Three of the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews Old Course on August 24, 2024, in St Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
After managing to avoid the bunkers in the first two rounds, the 2023 LPGA Player of the Year had to take her medicine on the back nine Saturday.
“I was definitely a brat about it,” said Vu, “because I thought I hit a good shot, and then it happened to roll in.”
She credited her caddie for getting her mind right.
Vu missed several months of competition earlier this year with a back injury and does all that she can to combat the cold. On Friday, she went back and forth from the cold plunge to the sauna and found the new routine helpful, along with plenty of hot chocolate.
Last year’s victory came at Walton Heath, a parkland course, outside London. The gritty Vu got a kitten to celebrate, naming him Walton. There’s already a second bribe from her father in play that if she wins another major, she can get a second cat.
She’s already thought about names, noting that she’d get a girl this time around and name her Andie.
Lydia Ko of New Zealand poses for a photo with her caddie and team during a Pro-Am ahead of the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews Old Course on August 21, 2024, in St. Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Ko, who gushes about her puppy Kai when asked, looks at what happened at the Paris Olympics as something that was too good to be true. Imagine then, how’d she’d feel about topping it off with a victory at the Home of Golf, snapping a major championship drought that stretches back to 2016.
Would she wave goodbye on the Swilcan Bridge? Ko, who has long said she wouldn’t play past 30, was asked about a walk-off retirement at the start of the week.
“I think you just have to listen to yourself,” said Ko. “The way Suzann (Pettersen) did it after holing that putt at Solheim, I mean, she couldn’t have finished her career on any more of a high.”
The same could be said for Ko, who could end her incredible career in the place where golf began. Doesn’t get more epic than that.
“It’s great because it will probably be my last time playing the British Open at St. Andrews,” said Ko.
Lydia Ko keeps the Olympic gold medal in her backpack. She hadn’t looked at it in a couple days though because the humble Ko didn’t want to draw attention.
“When I was flying with it, it was weird to kind of take it out because not everybody knows that I’m an athlete nor an Olympian or that I had won a medal,” she said at a pre-tournament press conference in Scotland. “So it’s kind of awkward at times.”
Ko pulled an all-nighter after winning gold, noting that travel logistics made it too hard to sleep. She got her first night’s rest on Sunday evening.
“It was pretty surreal,” she said. “I woke up, like, was that a dream? Did that just really happen?”
She’s now at the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Links, a fine tune-up before next week’s AIG Women’s British Open at St. Andrews. The 27-year-old Kiwi accomplished so much in one spectacular afternoon at the Paris Olympics that it’s going to take some time for the feat to sink in.
Ko’s gold-medal performance made her the only golfer in the modern era to earn three Olympic medals, one of each kind. It also qualified her for the LPGA Hall of Fame, the toughest Hall in all of sports. Ko became the 35th player to qualify for the Hall.
She was touched by all the LPGA Hall of Famers who’d already reached out, like Nancy Lopez, who always has a good word. Meg Mallon and Beth Daniel told Ko that her gold-medal performance brought them to tears.
“It’s pretty surreal,” said a grateful Ko. “I was talking to one of the moms yesterday and nearly brought tears to my eyes again.”
Leading amateur New Zealand’s Lydia Ko (L) stands next to winner, US golfer Stacy Lewis with their trophies after their successes at the Women’s British Open Golf Championship at the Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland, on August 4, 2013. US golfer Stacy Lewis won the women’s British Open on Sunday by two shots. Lewis, the winner of the 2011 Kraft Nabisco Championship, collected her second major with a final round 72 for an eight-under-par total of 280. AFP PHOTO/ANDY BUCHANAN (Photo credit should read Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)
Ko said one of her coaches asked about her next goal, and she noted that it would be “really cool” to win a third major. She’s only had two top-10 finishes at the British Open, with her best coming at Turnberry where she took a share of third. She was low amateur at the British at St. Andrews in 2013, taking a share of 42nd.
At the Old Course, she’ll be joined by her husband, mom, sister and brother-in-law.
“It’s great because it will probably be my last time playing the British Open at St. Andrews,” said Ko. “I’m excited that we can all enjoy it together.”
As for long-term plans, Ko said she hasn’t settled on any quite yet. She was asked if the British could be her final event, and Ko said probably not.
“I kind of want to get through this year first and then assess,” she said.
And then the player who has long maintained that she won’t be out there past 30, left the door open to more, saying that 2024 will “probably” not be her last competitive year.
“I have bad days and good days, and (on) bad days, I want to quit that day,” she said. “And good days, you feel like you could go and do this forever, and it feels like that moment is going to last forever.”
At 27 years old, Lydia Ko has put together one of the best careers in the history of the LPGA. In 2016, she won silver in Rio. Five years later, she earned the bronze medal in Toyko. And on Saturday, Ko captured the gold medal in Paris and a spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame, arguably the hardest hall to get into in sports.
Ko buried a birdie putt on the par-5 18th to cement her two-stoke victory over Esther Henseleit of Germany, who won the silver. Xiyu Lin of China took home bronze.
Earlier in her career, Ko stated she wanted to retire by 30. Will she play for a few more years, or will she call it quits now that she’s achieved a Hall-of-Fame resume?
Check out some photos of the emotional scene from the 2024 Olympics at Le Golf National below.
