Nelly Korda should have the LPGA’s Player of the Year race locked up, but Lydia Ko is making things interesting.
Making her first start since picking up her third career major title — and first in eight years — at the AIG Women’s Open last month, Ko entered the final round at the Kroger Queen City Championship two shots behind Jeeno Thitikul.
She ended Sunday having picked up seven shots on the 54-hole leader.
Ko fired a final-round nine-under 63 at TPC River’s Bend to win the Kroger Queen City Championship at 23 under by five shots for her third LPGA victory of the year. When you add in her historic Olympic win, which earned her the last point she needed to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame at just 27 years old, that makes it three-straight victories for Ko.
The win marks her 22nd career victory on the LPGA as well.
“It’s been pretty surreal. You know, I had the most unbelievable three weeks in Europe, and after having another three weeks off you’re not entirely sure what it’s going to be like,” Ko said. “I started off this event really strong, playing well the first couple days. I kind of hung in there yesterday and I said I know that Jeeno and a lot of the other girls aren’t going to play bad golf, so I just got to try and play even better golf.
“To have a round like this to cap off a win is pretty special.”
It’s been a stretch of some of the finest golf of Ko’s career over the past month after she came oh so close to earning her final Hall of Fame qualifying point back in January. Ko won the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions to put her a point away from gaining entrance to one of sports’ most difficult Halls of Fame.
That was after a bizarre season in 2023 when she failed to record a win and didn’t even qualify to defend her title at the CME Group Tour Championship.
Lydia Ko’s stirring Open win was a reminder: She’s not done just yet
Then she seemed destined to earn the final point in her next start at the LPGA Drive On Championship. But Nelly Korda had other plans and finished eagle-birdie to force a playoff she would win and jump-start her run of five-consecutive victories.
Ko struggled again after that, recording just one top-10 and missing two cuts before a T8 in Canada in late July. Then the calendar flipped to August and she took over again.
“I struggled a lot during the middle of the season, and I was in a place where okay am I really going to be in the Hall of Fame and all of those doubts,” Ko said. “I had a fairytale of those past couple months and now I feel like if I set my mind to it, maybe I can do it.”
On Sunday, Ko was still two behind when Thitkul eagled the par-5 8th, but after that, the final round was all the Kiwi’s.
Over the final nine holes, Ko made four birdies and an eagle of her own to come home in a scorching back-nine 30 and lap the rest of the field. Over the same stretch, Thitikul’s momentum stalled as she bogeyed the 9th hole and followed birdies at 12 and 14 with bogeys.
Ko has said she wants to retire at 30, and rumblings of her doing just that have only grown louder now that she has earned her place in the Hall of Fame. But she reiterated Sunday, she still has an accomplishment left on the LPGA and this win will only add fuel to her fire.
“I think it’s always been the goal of mine to do the career grand slam,” she said. “I feel like I’ve already been part of this fairytale, so why not?”
