Cheree Kinnear runs down the weekend's sports results in 90 seconds.
Fresh off guiding New Zealand golfer Lydia Ko to her first LPGA title in almost three years, coach Sean Foley has credited the 23-year-old Kiwi with turning his career around.
While the focus for golf fans and pundits has been on Ko's transformation since the middle of 2020, it seems Foley has walked a parallel journey of change alongside her; with the pair both emerging from dark places in their lives.
When Foley began working with Ko she was ranked at number 50 in the world - a far cry from her heady days as a consistent top five player - and hadn't won a tournament since 2018.
Then, over the course of the rest of 2020, Ko claimed five top 10 finishes and four further top 20 finishes. It turns out she was just warming up.
Ko has now begun the 2021 LPGA Tour with four results that firmly place her back amongst the sport's greats, including two second-places, a tie for eighth and victory at the Lotte Championship this past weekend.
After letting Ko's victory sink in, Foley took to his Instagram account to express his thoughts about the pair's journey so far and how it began at time in his life where he was struggling to stay motivated as a coach.
"I have to admit, when I started working with Lyds I was at a crossroads in my career after 13 years coaching on the PGA Tour and accomplishing so much; but at the same time, bruised and bleeding from all of my failures and not feeling like I was enough more often than I wanted to.
"I have seen the sunset from the highest professional summit, only to realise that night was near. It was dark, freezing and seemingly not worth it."
Since mid-2020, Sean Foley and Lydia Ko's partnership has been an extremely successful one. Photos Getty, AP
Foley then recalled how the rapid spread of Covid-19 and the subsequent enforced life-lockdown gave him time to explore why he was involved in the sport at all.
"The pandemic hit and I finally had time to challenge my understanding and look deeply into why I do what I do. The question that kept coming to the surface was: 'I have lived my dream, accomplished incredible things, but how I can feel so empty?'
"The question that arose from that painful but most important time was: 'Why do I coach?'. The next day I get a phone call from Lydia."
What happened next, Foley says, was a slow realisation that by helping others transform - for himself through coaching - one also helps themselves.
"As we started to work, I started to remember why I started to do this for a living in the first place. I develop as I develop others. We are all one. If I improve you, I improve.
"I am giving the advice I need to hear the most until one day I am a walking example of it, an energy that makes all things around me vibrate."
Foley also told Golf.com that the key role he has played in unlocking Ko's form was in reminding her of the reality of her talent.
"I haven't really showed her anything new, it was already there. Some players, you show what's inside of them. And others, you remind them. That was just a reminder."
Ko now sits in 13th place on the all-time LPGA career money list with US$11,592,269 ($NZ16.1m) earned across 184 events since her professional debut in 2013.
With this week's victory, Ko will return the top 10 of the world golf rankings and now sits second on the Race to the Globe CME season standings behind Nelly Korda who was second in Hawaii.
