Outside of a great honeymoon to start 2023, Lydia Ko had a year she’d pretty much like to forget. She struggled mightily on the golf course after winning three times the previous season, and on several occasions left the 18th green at a tournament in tears.
Ko, a 19-time LPGA Tour winner, two-time major champion and still only 26, will have a great chance to bounce back this weekend at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions on the Lake Nona course she now calls home.
Ko played bogey-free for a 5-under 67 as temperatures began to cool in the LPGA’s season opener, and she heads into the weekend alongside Japan’s Ayaka Furue (71) in a share of the 36-hole lead.
They were at 8-under 136. Scotland’s Gemma Dryburgh (68) and Mexico’s Gaby Lopez, a former TOC champion who shot 71, are two shots back. Defending champion Brooke Henderson and Alexa Pano — at 19, the youngest player in this week’s field — will begin the weekend three shots out of the lead. Both shot 70 on Friday.
Ko tasted success elsewhere in 2023, winning an event on the Ladies European Tour (the Saudi Ladies International) and an unofficial mixed-team tournament alongside the PGA Tour’s Jason Day late in the year. That gave her the confidence she was searching for.