Kiwi golfing World #1 Lydia Ko and Chung Jun wed at Myeongdong Cathedral in central Seoul. Photo / Instagram
Kiwi golf superstar and Women’s World Golf No. 1 Lydia Ko has tied the knot with her fiance Chung Jun in South Korea.
Ko was all smiles as she walked down the aisle at Seoul’s Myeongdong Cathedral dressed in a white lace gown with a long train and veil.
Her new husband, her boyfriend of two years, is the son of Hyundai Card vice-chairman Chung Tae. Hyundai Card is a credit card company under the Hyundai Motor Group.
In March, Ko’s coach Sean Foley told NZME the golfer was ‘madly in love’.
Foley said, “her boyfriend is a lovely kid, he’s like a world-class guy, I couldn’t be happier for her.
“I think that some of her great play may come from the fact that there are two things now and her identity is not solely collected to her playing golf,” he said.
Ko revealed she popped the question first when the couple was engaged, using a golf theme to ask her then-boyfriend to marry her.
“It’s very complicated. I proposed to him as well and then he proposed to me. I was like ‘why is it that the guy has got to propose?’,” Ko told NZME in October.
“I did it very golf-like. I wrote on golf balls ‘will you marry me?’.”
Ko said her fiancé then got the chance to propose.
“In Korea, we set a wedding date before proposals so you’re engaged but sometimes the guy will propose a week before the wedding. Some people do it early and some people do a surprise proposal a few days before - so it’s very different.
“He proposed during our engagement shoot. It was really cool. I didn’t expect it. He was going on about numbers, of how many days we’ve known each other and things like that. For a second I was thinking ‘why are you throwing numbers at me?’ and then I realised what was going on.”
Ko’s wedding marks the end to a memorable year.
She won the CME Group Tour Championship and moved up the Rolex Rankings to World No. 1 for the third time in her LPGA career in November.
Ko first reached No. 1 in 2015, holding the top spot from February 2 to June 14 for a total of 19 weeks, and last held the No. 1 ranking for 85 weeks from October 2015 to June 2017. The span of five years, five months and 17 days is the longest period between No. 1 rankings.