Never say never, but it will take something astonishing for Lydia Ko not to snare the Vare Trophy in the coming days.
Ko is in the box seat to win the prestigious trophy for the first time ahead of the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship in Florida, starting Friday morning (NZT).
In fact, the world No 5 has all but secured the trophy awarded to the player with the lowest scoring average on the year before teeing off in the final LPGA Tour event in 2021.
Ko (69.391) leads In Gee Chun by 0.317 among eligible players – only those who play at least 70 rounds on the year qualify – meaning Chun would need to average 63.679 over the final four rounds of the year to pass Ko’s current average.
That leaves Chun needing to finish 23 strokes ahead of Ko to deny the Kiwi the title Chun won in 2016.
"At the end of the day, I still need to play good golf to be deserving of that award. Yeah, it would be really cool at the end of Sunday next week to be awarded that, especially because it's those final awards. It summarises your whole year and not just a specific event. It would be super meaningful. Just going to play my heart out ask see what's going to happen,” Ko said last week.
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"Probably the career Grand Slam is my biggest goal. I think if I do the career Grand Slam I'm there [Hall of Fame] anyway. [The Vare Trophy] kind of sorts itself out. Yeah, I think not every player gets to win on tour and not every player ends up being a Hall of Famer, so to be - to have my name alongside some of the greats that are there would be really cool.”
The Vare Trophy winner accrues a point towards the LPGA Hall of Fame. Ko has 19 points, eight short of being eligible for the HOF.
Nelly Korda, Jin Young Ko and Yuka Saso lead Ko on scoring average, but won’t reach the required amount of rounds to be eligible.
However, they’ve still got ample to play for – that being the Race to the CME Globe Champion, a season-long points competition in which LPGA Tour members accumulate points.
The winner of the US$5 million (NZ$7.1 million) CME Group Tour Championship will also be crowned the Race to the CME Globe Champion, pocketing a cool US$1.5 million.
After her second placing at the Pelican Women’s Championship on Monday, Ko, who tees off at 3.15am on Friday, qualified third for the final event of the year, which will see the top 60 players (and ties) compete in the 72-hole, no-cut competition with the largest winner’s prize in women’s golf on the line.
It would be some way for Ko to finish the year, having just nailed her 10th top-10 finish of the year, which propelled her inside the top-10 list of LPGA prize money winners.
Expect Ko to keep getting better, too. At least that’s the word from coach Sean Foley, who started working with the 24-year-old in July last year.
Ko was ranked as low at 55th shortly after Foley took over, and this week told Golf.com he and Ko were working on alignment, positioning and feel, while honing her mental game and competitive mindset was crucial.
“[At the Saudi Ladies Invitational], she made 18 birdies in 36 holes, but still pointed out to the media this one nasty drive she hit,” Foley said.
“That’s pretty unconscious to mention that nasty drive. So when I see an interview done where she doesn’t mention that, I know that we’re closer. I still think that we’re going to get a lot better. She’s so incredible for the game. I think more than anything, how I helped her get clear was, we just kind of went through the difficulty of being No 1 in the world at 17.”
Source: stuff.co.nz