Ironic situation for former world number one female golfer

Lydia Ko has two tournaments as defending champion on the LPGA Tour, but has been unable to make the cut to defend both titles.

Ko, 26, has spent 125 weeks atop the Rolex Rankings, and currently holds the BMW Ladies Championship, having won at -21 in October 2022. Less than a month later, the New Zealander won the Tour Championship at -17.

Lydia Ko at the end of the first round of the Tour Championship in November 2022. Photo: AP

But this year, Ko had to rely on a sponsor to return to the BMW Ladies Championship from October 19 to 22 in Korea, but was not sure of a place in the final tournament in November.

The situation arose when Ko, who currently sits 93rd in the season-weighted Race to CME Globe, had the potential to improve her position this week by playing in the Arkansas Championship. In fact, she could have advanced to the Volunteers of America next week. But Ko, who has two majors among her 19 LPGA Tour titles, skipped the event.

From October 12 to 26, the LPGA Tour will be running a weekly Asian tour, including the Buick LPGA Shanghai (China), BMW Ladies Championship (Korea), Maybank Championship (Malaysia) and Toto Japan Classic (Japan). During this journey, Ko is only an official competitor at the event in Shanghai, the rest are invited. With that situation, it is even more difficult for her to earn points to increase her chances of entering the Tour Championship, which is only reserved for the top 60 of the CME Globe.

According to LPGA Tour rules, the Asian series does not cut off and invite players, but must not win to be counted.

So Ko only has the ability to accumulate "official" points without finishing first to increase his chances of defending his major championship title through tournaments in Arkansas this week, Shanghai from October 12-15 and Florida from November 9-12. If he fails to achieve that goal, Ko will miss the Tour Championship for the first time in 10 years of professional golf.

The risk is in stark contrast to Ko’s form in the early stages of 2023. She entered the campaign as world number one, winning the Saudi Ladies International on the Ladies European Tour in February and finishing T6 at the Honda LPGA Thailand on the LPGA Tour. But since then, she has played 15 events on the US Tour, including four cuts and the rest of her top 30 finishes.

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