Lydia Ko keeps No. 1 ranking, but fails to win season’s title

Lydia Ko keeps No. 1 ranking, but fails to win season’s title. November. 22, 2016 07:12. by Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com.

Golfer Lydia Ko (19) has stayed atop in the world rankings for the 57th consecutive week, but unfortunately failed to win the last championship of the season.

Ko, who received the player of the year and the top earner award in the last season, finished second in all major categories including the fewest pars, total purse money and the player of the year award in this year’s LPGA Tour, which ended on Monday.

In the Tour Championship, the season’s last tournament, Ko displayed stellar performance by posting 10 under par in the second round, increasing expectations among fans that she might become the player with most wins, but she backpedaled in the third round by posting one over par, and failed to reduce the number of strokes in the fourth round.

Until the early days of the season, Ko seemed to be unstoppable. She acquired the title in two consecutive events including the ANA Inspirational, poising to make this season another year of Ko’s era as well. However, she allowed Ariya Jutanugarn who won three titles in May alone to overtake her, and failed win any title since winning the silver medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August. He suffered a slump as she never advanced to make the top 10 in an event held in Asia.

After the KEB Hana Bank Championship in October, she separated from her caddie who had teamed up with her to clinch 10 wins overall for two years, but she has yet to make a turnaround.

Experts say that Lydia Ko has yet to recover the precision of her swings due to change of her swing style. “As she steeply lifts up the club in a bid to increase flying distances when doing backswings, she saw the direction of her shots deteriorate. As she hits more shots flying towards the left hand side, the accuracy of her iron shots also declined, with the number of her birdies falling as well,” said golf commentator Koh Deok-ho. Increasing her physical stamina and resetting her goals is considered another of her challenges. “I will never forget this past season," the 19-year-old golfer said. "I will take a rest even without touching my clubs for about a month. I think my golf clubs will dislike me as well.”

Korean golfers won a combined total of nine wins in this season of the LPGA Tour, and saw their strides of achieving 10 titles or more per season in the recent three seasons come to an end. Jang Ha-na, who won the most championships among the Korean golfers, had three championships, and Kim Se-young had two titles. Amid a slump of American golfers who only garnered two wins in total, Asian players including Jutanugarn and Feng Shanshan emerged as rivals to Korean golfers. In the next season, Park In-bee, Korea’s flagship golfer, will make a comeback, while Park Sung-hyun will also join the foray, as they are expected to add new momentum to the performance of Korean golfers.