Lydia Ko is a favourite to break her major drought. Photo / AP
Lydia Ko is a favourite to break her major drought. Photo / AP
Lydia Ko has a chance to knock off two significant milestones at the first major of the year starting tomorrow.
The world No 1 has been installed as the favourite at the Chevron Championship as she hunts to end her seven-year major drought — a feat which would also secureinduction into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
Since Ko’s last major victory in 2016, six months after her maiden major at the 2015 Evian Championship, the Kiwi has had two seconds and three third place finishes at majors, and 11 top-10 finishes since her last major victory.
And with the top of women’s golf so closely contested, Ko is realistic that playing consistently is her best approach to achieving her goals, as opposed to highlighting certain events.
“I just want to have a good week this week. It is definitely a big goal of mine to be in the Hall of Fame, but I’m just trying to play the best golf I can, and if I put myself in contention and just keep giving myself opportunities, I feel like they’re all going to come naturally,” Ko said.
“It would be pretty cool to get it done in the first major of the year and be in the Hall of Fame, but that’s not what’s important to me. I just want to have a good week and put myself in position, and if I have a chance at it and be the one that’s holding the trophy at the end of the week, that’s pretty awesome. But I don’t think that’s going to be my driving force going to any of these events this year.”
Lydia Ko. Photo / AP
The Championship — formerly known as the ANA Inspiration, which Ko won in 2016 for her last major — has moved from Mission Hills in California to Carlton Woods in Texas, meaning course form is non-existent for most players, especially for Ko who hasn’t travelled to Texas often.
“I haven’t played that many tournaments in Texas in general, so I didn’t know what it was going to be like,” Ko said.
“I played a practice round and I thought I was going to run out of balls before my round ended. But I finished strongly, and I’ve been donating fewer balls to the golf course since then.
“This golf course is fit for a lot of people in the field rather than like one type of player, and that’s what I always like to bring more players into contention, and I think it’s going to be a great championship course.”
Ko, who will tee off in the first round at 1.21am tomorrow, has also had to overcome some allergy issues, with some medication doing the trick after a tough introduction to the course.
“I got here a little early, I feel like when you come to a new golf course it’s nice to kind of play the golf course a little bit more just to get familiar.
“I probably broke the course record in sneezing. I was sneezing so much. I told that to my husband, but he only heard the course record, and he was like, ‘you must have played great’, and I was like, ‘no, I meant in sneezing because there’s a lot of pine trees here and I have allergies’.
“But it’s just good to get used to the golf course and just see which areas are not bad places to miss. I think with major championships and especially golf courses like this, sometimes a bogey is not the end of the world. When you do have an opportunity, you can make birdie.
“It’s not this tournament that is going to reflect my career. There’s always next week or the week after or another major championship. Sometimes I think we do get carried away about that present moment because it is so important to you, but I’m trying to do a better job of just kind of taking everything in.
“I didn’t have a great result [three weeks ago] in LA, but there were so many positives from that that I could take, and that’s all I can focus on and not dwell on the negatives.”
