Lydia Ko claims richest prize in girls’s golf at $2 million

NAPLES, Fla. — Lydia Ko by no means received extra in sooner or later than on Sunday within the CME Group Tour Championship, the place she claimed the richest prize in girls’s golf at $2 million with a victory that allowed her to win LPGA participant of the 12 months.

Ko outlasted Leona Maguire of Eire within the ultimate spherical, seizing management with a 7-foot birdie putt on the sixteenth gap and shutting with 2-under 70 for a two-shot victory.

Unflappable in a robust however occasional wind, Ko wiped away tears when she tapped in for par on the ultimate at Tiburon Golf Membership.

“There was numerous issues on the road as we speak,” Ko mentioned. “I actually needed to play the perfect golf I can. I knew it might be a troublesome battle, particularly with how powerful the circumstances had been.”

The $2 million prize took her season earnings to simply over $4.3 million, leaving her $591 wanting the Lorena Ochoa’s report for single-season earnings set in 2007. Ko clinched the points-based award for LPGA participant of the 12 months for the second time, and he or she received the Vare Trophy for the second straight 12 months for having the bottom scoring common.

Participant of the 12 months and the Vare Trophy are every value one level, together with the victory, giving her 25 factors towards the 27 factors wanted for the LPGA Corridor of Fame.

The 25-year-old Kiwi, tied with Maguire in the beginning of the ultimate spherical, took her first lead with a birdie on the par-3 eighth gap. Ko nonetheless led by one shot when she hit her tee shot simply wanting the flag on the par-3 sixteenth and made the 7-foot birdie putt.

Ko two-putted from 25 ft for birdie on the par-5 seventeenth to maintain her lead at two pictures going to the ultimate gap, and he or she performed it protected from there.

Ko completed at 17-under 271 and received the LPGA Tour finale for the second time. Her first title within the CME Group Tour Championship was in 2014 when she was 17 and already changing into a dominant determine in girls’s golf.

Ko is on the verge of the LPGA Corridor of Fame at age 25, a testomony to how good she has been for therefore lengthy.

“I am glad the picture I received in 2014 with my glasses could be up to date,” Ko mentioned.

She ends the 12 months with three victories — her first multiple-win season since 2016 — and had 9 different finishes within the prime 5.

Maguire’s hopes started to fade when she hit a fairway steel so skinny on the par-5 14th that it did not cross the hazard. She took a penalty drop, nonetheless could not get to the inexperienced into the robust wind and needed to get up-and-down with a wedge to salvage bogey.

Ko, nevertheless, hit her second shot off the facet of a hill and into the hazard, and he or she additionally made bogey to maintain the lead at one shot.

Maguire shot 72 to complete second. That was value $550,000 from the $7 million purse. Anna Nordqvist had a 67 to complete third.

Ko heads into the offseason with plans to get married. “That is my final event as a single woman,'” she mentioned with amusing on the trophy presentation.

She now has 19 profession victories — the primary one was 10 years in the past in Canada when she was a 15-year-old newbie, making her the youngest to win an LPGA Tour occasion.