Lydia Ko at the LPGA Kingsmill 2017

Ko’s career a knockout on LPGA circuit

What a great career professional golfer Lydia Ko has enjoyed. And while her career may be winding down, fans of the Ladies’ Professional Golfers’ Association are hoping that Ko’s stated plan to retire three years from now at age 30 gets postponed.

Bruce Penton

September 9, 2024

Ko was an amateur, at age 15 no less, when she won the Canadian Open, a regular LPGA event, at Edmonton's Royal Mayfair Golf Club in 2012. Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, the New Zealander won the Canadian Open the next year, at age 16, at the Vancouver Golf Club. Needless to say, she was ready for the professional ranks.

And what a great career! Twenty-one LPGA wins, three of them majors. Three medals in three trips to the Olympic Games, including a gold this year. That Olympic victory in Paris not only gave her the gold medal, but it was the one final point she needed to earn Hall of Fame status. The LPGA's Hall of Fame criteria is based on a point system – one point for each tournament win; two points for a major; one point for an Olympic gold. The win in Paris put her over the top, and then she went out and won the season's final major, the AIG Women's Open at the home of golf, St. Andrews, two weeks later...

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