Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
This is a straightforward and simple drill to help golfers understand the correct hip motion at the start of the downswing. There is always a slight lateral hip motion to allow the weight to shift from the back foot to the front before the hip rotation starts. But, as Lydia Ko explains, she had a habit of “spinning out,” which many golfers do. This will cause the clubhead to travel across the ball, causing a hook or a slice depending on where the clubface is at impact. So the next time you are on the range, try this drill to give you a sensation you’ve probably never felt before! Thanks to Keely Levins of Golf Digest for this very educational article!
The spin-out can cause hooks or slices!
There’s something kind of nice about missing it left. At least you got through the ball. And if you can wrestle in your hook, you’re looking at a baby draw, right? But no matter what kind of solace you can find in your misses, it’s always hard to make par from the trees. If you struggle with hitting ugly pull-hooks, you’re not alone. Even Lydia Ko, the number one female player in the world, has had some trouble missing it left.
She’s diagnosed that miss as a hip-turn issue. Instead of making a good, smooth turn through the ball, she said her hips spin out sometimes. This closes the clubface at impact, sending the ball hard left.
To fix it, she does this little drill:
Take an iron and put the grip behind your left thigh. Hold onto the club near the head with your right hand, and push back on it as you make practice hip turns. Pushing on the grip will provide a little resistance, and hold your hips back from spinning out. It teaches you how to stay in the shot with your lower body. Getting your hip motion under control will take that uncontrollable pull-hook and bring it back into the fairway.
The Top 10 Stories of the 2015 LPGA Season – #2 was epic!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
What a great season for the LPGA! In a year where two new stars emerged, the current #1 player upped her game, and some of the older players showed their grit, it was a standout year! Read on as Beth Ann Nichols writing for Golfweek, gives us her take on the last 12 months.
From left: Gerina Piller and Juli Inkster at the 2015 Solheim Cup ( Getty Images )
By Beth Ann Nichols
From Lydia Ko’s historic season to a memorable – and controversial – Solheim Cup, here are the top 10 moments on the LPGA in 2015, according to Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols:
10. Kris Tamulis won in her 186th start on the LPGA, in her 11th year on tour, at 34.
On a tour dominated by youthful storylines, Tamulis’ victory gave hope to the grinders. It proved especially heart-warming given that her caddie, Thomas Frank, aka “Motion,” lost his home in a fire earlier this year while he worked for Tamulis in Hawaii. They’re easy to root for.
By Associated Press
9. Amy Yang’s “perfect nine” on Sunday at LPGA Keb Hana Bank Championship.
She didn’t get the attention she deserved because of the time zone difference in South Korea. Yang birdied every hole on the back nine Sunday to shoot 9-under 27, the lowest nine-hole score in relation to par in LPGA history. Yang joined Hall of Famer Beth Daniel as the only LPGA player to post nine consecutive birdies.
(Photo by Matt Sullivan/Getty Images)
8. For a second time, Brittany Lincicome eagled the 18th hole.
The hole location was the same in 2015 at the ANA Inspiration as it was in 2009 when she hit the hybrid of her life. This time, Lincicome’s eagle forced a playoff against pal Stacy Lewis, and she won on the third extra hole. Lincicome led the field that week in driving and total putts.
7. Brooke Henderson didn’t just win the Cambia Portland Classic.
She owned it. The 18-year-old ended her quest for an LPGA card in a dramatic finish, setting a tournament scoring record of 21-under 267. Her eight-stroke margin of victory also smashed the previous record of six set in 1999 and 1986. AND Henderson Monday-qualified for the event. She wasn’t yet a member of any tour but rose to No. 18 in the world.
By Associated Press
6. Inbee Park’s brilliant final-round 65 at the Ricoh Women’s British Open at Trump Turnberry.
Put her seventh on the LPGA’s list of all-time major winners with seven. Whether or not it gave Park the career grand slam is up for debate, but she has now won four different majors. The 27-year-old ended the season by becoming the youngest player in tour history to earn enough points to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame.
To see the rest of the top 10 stories of the 2015 LPGA season, go here!
Here is the Good and the Bad for the 2015 LPGA Season!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Dottie Pepper, writing for ESPN W, gives us her insight into the year that was, 2015! There were a lot of great things that happened on the LPGA Tour. But, according to Dottie, there are things that could have been better! Things like poor attendance to LPGA events and the performance of the Americans. (definitely, a link here as Americans like Americans to win!) Of course, there are such a lot of positive things happening on the LPGA Tour right now, and I for one cannot wait to see Lydia Ko and Inbee Park go head to head in 2016. Let’s hope that some American women can step up to the plate in the coming year!
For the third consecutive year, we’ll take this time to look back at the good, bad and the ugly of the LPGA Tour’s season. And, just as last year, there’s much more good than either bad or ugly.
The Good
1. Youth movement:
Among the 31 events on the 2015 LPGA schedule, 11 were won by a player under the age of 21 at the time of her victory and nearly half (15) were won by players under 23.
2. Balance:
Cristie Kerr won twice this year, at the KIA Classic while still a 37-year-old and the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship as a 38-year-old, crossing the $17 million mark in career earnings in the process.
3. Momentum and the 2016 schedule:
Commissioner Mike Whan now has what he considers the perfect number of official events on the LPGA schedule: 33. That has increased by a whopping 10 events in five years, and total purse money has been upped by more than $20 million to a record $63.1 million in a time that many would argue the Great Recession is still not over.
North American events have increased from 15 just five years ago to what will be 23 in 2016, including a new event in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and another new tournament beginning in 2017 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Total televised hours have nearly doubled in that same five-year span, while network weekend coverage has tripled from two to six events.
Mandatory Credit: Marc Lebryk-USA TODAY Sports
If you thought the men had a youth movement in golf, the LPGA Tour’s champions in 2015 got younger and then some with nearly half its winners under the age of 23, including five-time champion Lydia Ko, who is only 18 — and world No. 1.
4. Drama:
The formula and format of the Race to the CME Globe is absolutely top notch with the season finale not only contested over a quality golf course at Tiburon GC in Naples, Florida, but with a points reset that rewards both season-long consistency and playing a full schedule.
The format infuses just enough drama for players to endure to finish out the season in top form, as witnessed by this weekend’s event. Lydia Ko, Inbee Park and Stacy Lewis each could have won the $1 million bonus with a win at Tiburon, but because none of them won the actual golf tournament, it brought a hard-charging Lexi Thompson into the bonus mix.
During the final round, Ko, Park and Thompson were each, at various points, projected to take home the seven-figure haul. The two biggest LPGA awards, the Rolex Player of the Year and Vare Trophy (for lowest scoring average), were also undecided until the final hole of the year with Ko taking home the first award and Park winning the second, thus giving her the final point she needed to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame after she completes her 10th year of membership in 2016.
Lydia Ko – Teenage Queen of Golf Continues Her Reign!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
18-year-old Lydia Ko won the LPGA Taiwan Championship this weekend and regained her No. 1 world golf ranking.
In my book, she is now the Queen of golf! She certainly has a “Royal” demeanor. I look forward to 2016 to see what she is going to do in the Major Championships. I think she could win them all!
Along with many fans, I have been watching this youngster since she won her first professional event at age 14, at the Women’s New South Wales Open in Australia. Her first LPGA Tour win was the Canadian Women’s Open in 2012 when Ko was 15 years old.
Lydia is now aged 18 years and 6 months and is the youngest player ever to win 10 events on any major tour. She also holds the record for being ranked the youngest World No. 1 player of either sex. (17 years of age in February 2015) I’m not sure that people understand that this means Ko has surpassed Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, etc. Let’s pay more attention to this golfing phenom and appreciate what she’s doing for our sport!
South Korea’s Inbee Park, former No. 1 ranked player, has been Ko’s closest competitor in the last 2 years, altho Park did not contend in this Taiwan Championship.
My best reasons to root for Ko:
her record-breaking successes at a ridiculously young age.
her global profile… Ko’s victories have come in Canada, France, Korea, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan.
her personality… “She’s not only a good player, but she’s a really good person. If she was not a good person, I might be jealous, but I totally respect her” says LPGA competitor So Yeon Ryu. Ryu is one of many golfers and industry leaders who speak well of Ko.
Who is the Greatest Teenage Golfer of All Time – Male or Female?
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
If you answered Lydia Ko, congratulations.
But I’m afraid many people would quickly name Tiger Woods or maybe Jack Nicklaus. Because the media gives much more coverage to the men’s golf, a phenomenal, history-making golfer is “falling through the cracks in this conversation” as Shane Bacon says for Fox Sports.
Lydia Ko became the youngest winner of a major championship on the same weekend in September where the men were playing the next-to-last FedEx Cup event, the women’s Solheim cup was being played out in Europe, and it was the start of the NFL season. So, yes, there was a lot of activity vying for the golfer’s attention. However, you’d think that Ko’s accomplishment would have been discussed on TV shows the next day and that she would be at the top of Golf Internet news, etc.
Besides winning the Evian Championship with a final round of 63(!) to become the youngest Major winner ever, Ko ranked No. 1 woman golfer in the world at 17 years of age. At that point, she had racked up numerous wins as a professional and also as an Amateur, since age 14.
Shane Bacon of Fox Sports has an interesting take on the lack of attention to Lydia Ko and lets us know why this is a big mistake.
The story is everything you would think the mainstream media would want.
A teenage superstar winning a major in record-setting fashion, the face of women’s golf emerging as not only a threat to win each week but now adding a major to her trophy case. So why don’t people seem to care?
Not many people noticed when Lydia Ko won her first major last weekend — and that’s a shame. Jean-Pierre Clatot / Getty Images
We are in the closing stretches of the 2015 PGA Tour season, one for the ages when you think about the majors and the names who broke out, and one we will look back on as the year when things in men’s golf changed. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were far from the headlines, as Jordan Spieth,Jason Day and Rickie Fowler had breakout years and were part of a group of 20-somethings who are taking over golf.
But one name who will fall through the cracks in this conversation, as it always seems to happen in sports, is the one who was the most impressive. Lydia Ko, who is still just 18, won her first major championship on Sunday, becoming the youngest to do so in the modern era of golf and finishing it off with a jaw-dropping 63.
So why don’t people seem to care? Why isn’t it a talking point on sports shows?
Who is the Greatest Teenage Golfer of All Time – Male or Female?
Why are people ignoring this incredible accomplishment in an era where youth is everything in our world?
I asked people on Twitter this question Monday. They mentioned the start of the NFL season (OK, fine), the fact that the event was played overseas (still not totally buying that, but I get the time difference), and even gave predictably disappointing answers like she’s not American or the fact that it’s “women’s golf.”
To me, none of these answers is acceptable. Who cares if Ko isn’t American?! Rory McIlroy isn’t American, and when he wins we put him on the cover of our sports magazines and compare his stats to those of Tiger and Jack. When Jason Day won at Whistling Straits, we anointed him one of the new Big Three and discussed whether he might sneak off with Player of the Year honors ahead of Spieth, especially if he closes things out well in the playoffs.
To me, not being an American shouldn’t be an issue in 2015. We love athletes who can do amazing things. Usain Bolt catches our attention. Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic capture the national media in a U.S. Open final, and Ko is winning major championships at age 18.
She’s already the greatest teenage golfer, male or female, in the history of golf.
And now she’s winning the biggest of the big with final rounds that match what Johnny Miller did at Oakmont back in 1973.
We as golf fans, and sports fans, need to do better on this front. Ko is making history. It’s our responsibility to start paying attention.
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
One HUGE thing the average male golfer can learn from watching the LPGA stars play the game is how easy they swing and yet hit the ball a fair distance.
Certainly longer than the average male golfer. When you swing in rhythm, your body relaxes, and the muscles move faster. Your grip pressure lightens, you get more lag on the club, and usually, your balance will be better as well. Next time you have a chance to watch the LPGA, do it!
Easy Does It is the name of the golf game I want you to try and play today…
‘The first time I grabbed a golf club, I knew that I’d do it for the rest of my life’
Michelle Wie
This week I want to look at the ladies game. Lydia Ko, the young phenomenon from New Zealand, has just won the fifth and final major of the ladies calendar, The Evian Championship. To add to this the Solheim Cup, the ladies equivalent of the Ryder Cup, starts this week so let’s strike while the iron is hot and talk ladies golf.
In my opinion there is a great deal that can be learned from watching the world’s greatest female golfers plying their trade.
There is a distinct difference between ladies and gents golf and this is always most evident when watching these athletes from the tee.
Players on the LPGA and LET rarely try to kill their drives, and they hit more fairways and greens.
Watch ladies golf and you will see relaxed fluid swings with great tempo. Now don’t get me wrong, watching Rory or Bubba bomb one over 400-yards is incredible however this is a different thing altogether.
Here you’re seeing an emphasis on hitting fairways rather than gaining distance.
For example the leading driving accuracy on the PGA Tour is 76.88% (Francesco Molinari) whilst on the LPGA it’s 89% (Mo Martin). The same trend holds true on the European counterparts.
Which Young Golfer Will Win More Majors – Lydia Ko or Spieth?
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
PGA Tour Player Jordan Spieth is surely on track to win many more majors, following his incredible Masters and US Open wins in 2015 at 21 years of age
LPGA Tour Player Lydia Ko is the youngest major champion in women’s golf history at 18 years of age and is also the youngest ever number 1 player in the world.
With those facts in mind, I found this conversation between ESPN.com staff to be of great interest.
Golf Analyst Michael Collins and writer Jason Sobel go with Jordan Spieth. One reason they cite is that Spieth will have a much longer career. Ko recently said that she plans to retire at 30, limiting her chances to win majors.
ESPN writer Bob Harig and anchorman Jonathan Coachman declare that Lydia Ko will win more majors than Spieth for 2 very compelling reasons.
New Zealand’s Lydia Ko poses with her trophy after winning the Evian Championship on September 13, 2015, in the French Alps town of Evian-Les-Bains. AFP PHOTO / JEAN PIERRE CLATOT (Photo credit should read JEAN-PIERRE CLATOT/AFP/Getty Images)
Lydia Ko’s victory at the Evian Championship made the 18-year-old the youngest major champion in women’s golf history. Not a bad way to cap off a year in which she also demolished the mark as the youngest golfer to reach No. 1 in the world, male or female.
So why isn’t she getting more accolades for her accomplishments?
And what about Phil Mickelson, at 30th on the Presidents Cup points list, getting the nod as one of Jay Haas‘ captain’s picks?
Our scribes weigh in on those topics and more in this week’s edition of Monday Four-Ball.
1. Why isn’t Lydia Ko’s amazing ascendancy receiving more attention?
SportsCenter anchor Jonathan Coachman:
Lydia Ko is simply a low-key person who is an amazing champion. The reason she is not getting more attention is because of how she goes about her business. She is not an intense, win-at-all-costs competitor. But I think that she has something inside of her that allows her to play well every single week. But she is not a me-me-me person. And if you don’t draw attention to yourself, you normally don’t get it.
ESPN.com senior golf analyst Michael Collins:
A few reasons. This so-called major was contrived just two years ago and didn’t come about over the test of time like other majors. It was played in France with a very small American audience. Most importantly, this win happened on the opening weekend of the NFL and second weekend of college football.
ESPN.com senior golf writer Bob Harig:
Why hasn’t Jordan Spieth gotten more attention? It’s golf, a niche sport that at times has trouble gaining traction. Obviously Spieth’s Grand Slam run got its share of notice this summer, but women’s golf has it even harder than the men’s game. Some of the tournaments are not on live TV. Many are played internationally. It’s simply a sad reality that remains difficult to overcome.
ESPN.com senior golf writer Jason Sobel:
There’s one reason — and it’s a simple one: We’ve become desensitized to dominance in women’s golf, even if it didn’t come at such a young age for Ko’s predecessors. From Annika Sorenstam to Lorena Ochoa to Yani Tseng to Inbee Park, the past two decades of LPGA golf have often offered us a single top player who’s clearly better than the competition. It’s not Ko’s fault she doesn’t get more attention. She deserves it. But the only reason she doesn’t is because we too often feel like this is the fourth sequel to a story we’ve already read.
To read what the top sports writes say about the subject of which young golfer will win more majors — Ko or Spieth?
Important Questions on this week’s Women’s British Open!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
The Women’s British Open is being played at Turnberry this week.
Turnberry is a great golf course set on the Ayshire Coast and instantly recognizable by the iconic lighthouse out on the course’s far side. Several great storylines are developing, and Bill Fields of espnW.com asks 5 important questions to figure out the final outcome!
Getty Images – Michelle Wie matched her best result of the year in the U.S. Women’s Open, and Lydia Ko is coming off a fourth-place finish in Scotland.
The fourth of five 2015 LPGA major championships. The Ricoh Women’s British Open will be held Thursday-Sunday on the Ailsa course at Turnberry Resort on Scotland’s southwestern coast.
It is the second time play in this event has been at Turnberry. Best known as the site of Tom Watson’s stirring victory over Jack Nicklaus in the 1977 Open Championship. And Watson’s second-place finish in the 2009 Open at age 59, when he led going to the final hole. Australian Karrie Webb won the Women’s British at Turnberry in 2002. A year after the championship made the change to a LPGA major.
Established stars and upstarts have made an impact so far this season on the LPGA Tour.
Here are five questions in advance of the Women’s British Open. American Mo Martin will defend her inspiring victory of a year ago.
(Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
Bothered by bursitis in her left hip and a bone spur in her left foot, Michelle Wie sat out the last two tournaments to rest.
1. What can we expect from injury-riddled Michelle Wie?
Wie, 25, matched her best result of the year in the U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club, finishing 11th despite continuing to play with injuries that caused her to limp noticeably at times. Wie did not play in the past two events, the Marathon Classic and Meijer LPGA Classic, in an effort to recover from bursitis in her left hip and a bone spur in her left foot that have been plaguing her for several months.
She seemed in good spirits during a Monday morning practice round in Scotland, tweeting, “Team Wie is loving Turnberry so far!!”
It will be interesting to see if the rest has helped Wie, who also has dramatically revamped her stance with instructor David Leadbetter — making it much narrower — to take stress off her left side. Wie has shown an admirably gritty spirit in competing while she has been hurt. But she needs to heal to play the kind of winning golf she did in the first half of 2014.
2. Do those who played last week in Scotland have an edge?
Much is made each summer of the men who do or don’t play in Great Britain the week prior to the Open Championship. By winning the Claret Jug two weeks ago on the Old Course after competing at the John Deere Classic in Illinois, Zach Johnson offered a rebuke to those who say arriving earlier abroad is a plus. (Two years ago, Phil Mickelson notably won the Scottish Open the week before capturing the Open at Muirfield.)
The debate about which strategy is best is relevant this week, too. While the Meijer LPGA Classic was on in Michigan last week, the Ladies Scottish Open, a Ladies European Tour stop, was held at Dundonald Links in Scotland.
Two LPGA stars, World No. 2 Lydia Ko and No. 6 Suzann Pettersen, passed up Michigan for Ayrshire and had good weeks — Ko tying for fourth place and Pettersen finishing second.
For Ko, it was her third top-six finish in her last four tournaments — she tied for 12th in the U.S. Women’s Open in the other — which should give her some confidence at Turnberry. When Ko won her seventh career LPGA title the week she turned 18 earlier this year, a major victory seemed imminent. But she went through a rough patch going into the Women’s PGA. She missed the first cut of her LPGA career. Her game is trending in the right direction again now. She could be a serious factor this week.
Next month, a victory at Turnberry or in the Evian Championship would make Ko the youngest winner of an LPGA major.
Lydia Ko is the Youngest Player Ever to reach #1 in the World!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
On January 31st, 2015, Lydia Ko became the youngest player in golf history to reach #1 in the World.
What an amazing accomplishment. Here’s the report by golf.com and AP News.
Lydia became the youngest player ever to reach #1 in the World on 31st January 2015.
OCALA, Fla. (AP) — During a closing stretch that featured one of the more tumultuous final hours in recent LPGA Tour history, teen wunderkind Lydia Ko faced a series of tough predicaments. But a query that came after the final round gave her the biggest pause of all.
After reclaiming the lead late Saturday to set herself up for a double payoff of sorts, the 17-year-old double-bogeyed the 71st hole in the inaugural Coates Golf Championship to lose by a shot to Na Yeon Choi.
However, Ko secured a piece of history that could be remembered long after the details of the tour’s season opener are forgotten. The transplanted New Zealander became the youngest player of either gender to climb to world No. 1, breaking the record set by Tiger Woods by almost four years.
As the ramifications of the distinction finally took hold, the sting of defeat at Golden Ocala Golf and Equestrian Club wasn’t quite so nasty.
The notion of celebrating, which first set her back for a moment, didn’t seem so crazy after all.
“It’s going to be good,” Ko said. “I was here to focus on the tournament itself, but I guess I got a great outcome at the end of the day, too.”
After leading by as many as four shots on the front nine, Ko trailed Choi by a shot as they played the par-3 15th. With Choi facing a 6-footer for birdie, Ko slammed in an improbable 60-footer and Choi promptly three-putted for a two-shot swing.
The teenager’s lead didn’t last long. Ko drove into a fairway bunker, then fanned a hybrid shot into a stand of pine trees down the right side of the 17th hole, scrambling to make a double bogey.
As the steadier Choi finished with a 4-under 68 and 16-under total, Ko had to salvage a par on the 18th to finish in a three-way tie at 15 under, but it was good enough to secure a piece of the record book.
Woods, previously the youngest golfer to reach No. 1, was 21 years, 5 months, 16 days when he reached the top in 1997. Ko reached the mark 3 years, 8 months, 14 days earlier. The men’s rankings date to 1986 and the women’s list is nine years old.
“It’s a nice consolation if you want to call it that,” said Ko’s swing coach, David Leadbetter.
Ko finished with a 71 to match Jessica Korda (66) and Ha Na Jang (70) at 15 under.
Ko, whose pulse rate seems to be frozen at about 75 beats per minute whether she’s making an eagle or double bogey, hardly seemed derailed by the 71st-hole meltdown. Her indefatigable nature is her biggest asset, Leadbetter said.
“We sent her to anger management school to learn how to get angry,” Leadbetter laughed.
Choi, on the other hand, was clearly caught up in the emotion of her first victory since late 2012. The 27-year-old topped the LPGA money list in 2010 and won the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open, but had fallen out of the world top 15.
“I think I was so nervous out there,” said Choi, who recorded her eighth LPGA victory and was fighting back tears. “I was waiting so long for this moment.”
Choi, one of the game’s elite players before the two-year victory drought set in, admitted that the pressure to succeed wore her down to the point that she stopped reading Korean sports websites and considered downgrading her cellphone plan so she could not download stories about her play.
“I think I had a lot of stress from the result,” Choi said. “Even if I was top 10 or top five, not many people said you did a good job if you finish as runner up. They say you are a loser and that hurts me a lot.”
As for Ko, her ascent seemed ordained when she won her first LPGA Tour title as an amateur at age 15, the youngest in tour history.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” American star Stacy Lewis said of the new No. 1. “It was just a matter of time.”
Ko, a native of South Korea who moved to New Zealand as a youngster, unseated Inbee Park in the top spot.
“She’s probably the straightest player out here,” said Park, who tie for 17th. “The golf gets easier if you hit the ball straight and you can roll the ball in.”
Ko hit a few crooked shots down the stretch, which ultimately cost her the first-place trophy, but once the magnitude of the moment took hold, she was all smiles.
“There was obviously a loss,” Ko said. “But there was a huge positive, too. That’s pretty awesome.”
The Top 5 LPGA Players to watch in 2015 – What’s in their bag?
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
I have always been interested in what type of club setup the top players in the game carry.
If you have that same interest, here is a list of all the LPGA players and what’s in their bag.
1 Stacy Lewis – Taylor Made Driver, Mizuno fairway woods and irons, Taylor Made Putter and Titleist ball
2. Inbee park – Dunlop driver, Taylor Made fairway woods, Dunlop irons, Dunlop and Cleveland Wedges, Odysee putter, and Srixon ball.
3. Michelle Wie – Diver, Fairway woods, irons, wedges, putter, and ball…….All Nike.
4. Lydia Ko – Calloway Driver, fairway woods, irons, wedges, putter, and ball.
5. So Yeon Ryu – Honma Driver, Calloway 3 wood, Honma hybrids, a mix of Honma and Calloway wedges, Odessey putter, and Titleist ball.
For a complete list of clubs of all LPGA players, click here.
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