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ORLANDO, Fla. – The LPGA season-opener is a bona fide residence recreation for quite a few LPGA stars, together with Lydia Ko, who drove her personal golf cart within the pro-am Wednesday on the Hilton Grand Holidays Match of Champions.
The previous No. 1 understandably selected her honeymoon over this occasion final season, however is again at Lake Nona Golf & Nation Membership, the place she’s been working towards the previous two months. Ko and her husband additionally spend time within the San Francisco Bay Space, the place she performs out of The Olympic Membership and Lake Merced.
The 35-player area at this 12 months’s TOC contains 12 first-time members, together with World No. 1 Lilia Vu. Final week, Ko performed a observe spherical with fellow Nona members Leona Maguire and Nasa Hataoka, who’re additionally within the area. Gamers who’ve received previously two seasons on the LPGA are eligible.
Whereas the professionals compete for a $1.5 million purse on Jan. 18-21, celeb contestants will play for $500,000 in a Modified Stableford format. One other famed Lake Nona resident, LPGA Corridor of Famer Annika Sorenstam, will compete within the celeb division together with NBC’s Dylan Dreyer, U.S. Soccer Corridor of Famer Landon Donovan, eight-time NBA All-Star Vince Carter, nation music star Chris Lane and World Sequence Champion John Smoltz, a two-time champion on the TOC.
Sorenstam, a 10-time main winner who lives off the sixteenth tee at Nona, retired from the LPGA in 2008 however made a return to the aggressive scene after turning 50.
“I’ve been so shut,” mentioned Sorenstam of profitable the celeb division on residence turf. “(Husband) Mike (McGee) has all of the stats of all of the occasions I performed in. I’ve been knocking on the door, however haven’t actually been in a position to put 4 nice rounds collectively. That’s what I might like to do.”
Whereas Sorenstam’s legacy within the recreation is firmly cemented, Ko nonetheless has an opportunity to earn her approach into arguably the hardest Corridor of Fame in all of sports activities. Now two factors shy of the 27 required to qualify for the LPGA Corridor, Ko would get there with two regular-season wins or one main championship victory. This 12 months she’s taking part in a heavier schedule than current years, one which rivals her rookie season, in an effort to go away nothing on the desk.
“I mentioned if I win twice early within the 12 months, like I may not play the 25 and is perhaps a bit of bit much less,” she mentioned. “I need to give myself as many alternatives as I can, and I believe being within the Corridor of Fame was probably not an enormous purpose of mine, however 2022, it was like a present of a 12 months that like in a single 12 months I obtained 5 factors.
“I used to be like, ‘Wow, how did that occur?’ Now I’m on the entrance door. Whether or not it occurs or not, that’s secondary. I don’t need the remorse of considering I left one thing behind.”
Lydia Ko of New Zealand and Jason Day of Australia have fun with the trophy after profitable the 2023 Grant Thornton Invitational at Tiburon Golf Membership in Naples, Florida. (Picture: Cliff Hawkins/Getty Pictures)
The 26-year-old mentioned initially of her LPGA profession that she wouldn’t play on the tour previous the age of 30. The 2-time Olympic medalist (silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo) mentioned the fairy-tale ending can be to win gold in Paris to gather all of them. It’s unlikely, she mentioned, that she’ll nonetheless be competing when the Summer season Video games come to Los Angeles in 2028.
“I joke generally that I’m not an athlete however an Olympian,” Ko mentioned laughing. “I’m tremendous excited for Paris.”
After a 2022 season that noticed her win 4 occasions and earn the LPGA Rolex Participant of the Yr award, Ko struggled mightily along with her ball-striking in 2023. In some ways, it felt like a misplaced season till she got here to the ultimate occasion – the Grant Thornton Invitational, a resurrected mixed-team event between the LPGA and PGA Tour that hadn’t occurred since 1999.
Ko hit the ball so poorly throughout the Tuesday observe spherical with associate Jason Day in Naples, Florida, final December that she felt embarrassed. By Friday, nonetheless, one thing clicked, and he or she and Day ended the 12 months with an unofficial victory and broad smiles.
The chase continues.
“I need to put my one hundred pc in it, whether or not it’s my observe or scheduling. If it occurs, that’s nice,” she mentioned of her big-picture objectives. “If it doesn’t occur, simply not meant to be.
“I believe that has simply been the mindset I’ve tried to tackle from this 12 months onwards.”
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