LYDIA KO Golfer 1997
The youngest person ever to become a golf world number one
Few Kiwis could ever dream retiring from fulltime work at the tender age of 30. But that is the reality that golfing sensation Lydia Ko is aiming to achieve. Ko, 21, has been one of the world’s leading women’s professional golfers since turning pro in 2014; in that time becoming the youngest player to win a professional golf tour event, the world’s youngest No 1, and the youngest and fastest player to ever break the US$1 million, US$2m, US$3m, US$4m, US$5m, US$6m, US$7m and US$8m in career winnings. She also has an Olympic silver medal to her name, three New Zealand Sportswoman of the Year gongs and claimed the Halberg Supreme Award in 2013. Away from the golf course, Ko also made it onto Time magazine’s list of 30 Most Influential global teens in 2015. Ko emigrated to New Zealand from South Korea in 2003 with family and gained Kiwi citizenship in 2009. She is firmly a proud Kiwi – and just as firm in her goal to call it quits at 30.
