Kiwi golfer Lydia Ko has been commended as one of the greatest players in women’s golf history following her record prize win in the LPGA’s season-ending Tour Championship.
Ko finished two shots clear of nearest rival, Ireland’s Leona Maguire, with a final-round 2-under-par 70 to claim both player-of-the-year honours and the largest cheque in women’s golf history.
The 25-year-old received a $2 million (USD) cheque for her victory (NZD $3 million), taking her season earnings to $6.6 million (NZD).
It was Ko’s first player-of-the-year award since 2015, capping off a successful year on the green.
With three victories and another nine top-five finishes, golf commentator Grant Boone believes Ko has cemented herself as one of the greatest to have ever played the women’s game.
“She has very simply cemented herself as one of the greatest players in the 72 years of women’s golf,” Boone told SENZ Mornings.
“She’s 25 years old, she did things that no one had ever done – including Tiger Woods – at the age that she did it.
“She won an LPGA tournament when she was 15, she won another when she was 16 (and) she won both of her Majors as a teenager.”
Boone says the former teenage prodigy has achieved the three most difficult components of sport and commends Ko for her journey back to the top of her game.
“There are three things that are hard in sport: achieving greatness, maintaining greatness and then regaining greatness if you’ve lost it, she has done all three of those things,” Boone added.
“She was great from day one, she sustained it for 100 plus weeks on the amateur level as the number one ranked player in the world (and) she sustained it for 100 plus weeks as the number one ranked professional.
“Then she dipped below the Top 50 in the world rankings.
“She’s never been afraid to try – like Tiger Woods by the way – to risk momentary failure for long-term success and yesterday to me was a culmination of a two-year journey.
“Sean told me, ‘We did what we set out to do’, and I thought yesterday was the culmination of that journey back to the top and it couldn’t happen to a more impressive human being than Lydia Ko.”
Ko finishes the season with a world No.2 ranking, just 0.09 average points behind American leader Nelly Korda.