She’s not done just yet

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Five days ago, 27-year-old Lydia Ko was asked a personal question. When you decide to retire, would you do it quickly, after an epic achievement, or would you play out the rest of the season and do it then?

The implication was obvious. We’re in St. Andrews, and she was readying to play an ancient golf course and pose for photos on the Swilcan Bridge, two weeks after winning Olympic gold and punching her ticket to the LPGA Hall of Fame. If you win this week, will you retire?

That was Wednesday, and what she said mattered for the next five days. The idea of a walk-off win circulated around the grounds. But on Sunday evening what she had said didn’t matter anymore. Because Ko did win this Old Course Open, and she just kept right on chugging. Her alarm is set to ring before dawn. On Monday, she has a 5:50 a.m. flight to Boston. The show goes on. 

WE’LL MISS LYDIA KO when she’s gone. Whenever that day is scheduled to come, we don’t know. Nor does she — or if she does, she hasn’t told us. But no modern player has considered an early end at as young an age as she has. Nine years ago, when Ko was just 17, the golf world gasped as she revealed her plan to quit when she turned 30. 

A lot has happened since then. A lot. Ko regrets putting her retirement thoughts out in the open. But the questions persist because those thoughts were real once, and they haven’t gone away. She is still serious about leaving the game, and soon…ish. Earlier than most of her contemporaries would. Ko thought Suzann Pettersen’s retirement after holing a winning putt at the Solheim Cup was “so cool, the mic drop.” Just this week, Ko was asking 36-year-old Jiyai Shin, who left the LPGA Tour 10 years ago at the peak of her powers, for details about how she did it. Shin has served as a mentor for Ko, which is ironic because Shin damn near won this Women’s Open herself — finishing tied for second, just two shots back — and then raced over to hug Ko before even signing her own scorecard. Shin doesn’t want Ko going anywhere.

“I’m still going, so I say to her, ‘Look at me,’” Shin said Sunday. “I just keep saying, ‘Look at me.’ She says she wants to move to the next step. But I say ‘We have the next step here as well.’ This is my third time in St. Andrews. If she retires, there’s no chance to come back … I just keep saying, ‘Don’t leave.’” 

It’s a predicament: How do you retire, and retire early, making peace with what you’ve done while trying to still do a bit more? Ask Andy Murray, the British tennis player whose singles career ended on a two-day, five-set match at Wimbledon last month, after he’d rushed back to compete after one final back surgery. Like Ko, Murray had surfaced the idea of an early-ish retirement, and he was asked about the R-word so much he had to implore reporters to stop inquiring. His retirement lost a bit of grace. His mother’s opinions on the topic made headlines. Same for his opponents. It can get ugly, the late stages. Both physically and mentally.

As was discussed at length after her Olympic glory two weeks ago, Ko’s 2023 was the worst season of her career. A 20-win career had her on the doorstep of the LPGA Hall of Fame, but still needing two more points to get in. She toiled in proximity of that achievement, especially when her form soured, crying in hotel rooms from Arkansas to Oregon. 

“I remember I missed the cut in Portland last year,” she said Saturday. “I was having Texas barbecue but I couldn’t taste anything because I was crying so much with my sister. Talking about What’s going on? What’s ahead? I feel lost. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to win ahead. You know, all those kind of thoughts were going through my mind.”

Ko broke through in January, in the first event of 2024, the Tournament of Champions, pushing her just one point away from Hall of Fame enshrinement. A week later, a 72nd-hole birdie would have booked her place in history, but she missed the green with her approach and lost to Nelly Korda in a playoff. That tease — Ko’s ball literally rolled up against celebratory roses and champagne the LPGA had brought greenside — sent her reeling again. Ko missed multiple cuts and didn’t finish in the top 10 for four months. How soul-crushing would it be to finish a career one point shy of the Hall? But also, how much of a waste would it feel like grinding on for years and still come up short? It took two people in her camp to step in and set her straight: her mother, Hyeon Bong-sook, and her husband, Jin Chung. 

“What I told her was, ’Hey if you are actually going to settle down in your career, this is the last time to enjoy this part of your life,” Chung said Sunday night. “I think that’s where that mentality came from. I think that eased a lot of anxiety on her side.”

To reach a place of acceptance with the unchecked boxes on her pre-retirement to-do list — not only the Hall of Fame but also winning a major for the first time in eight years — Ko had to invert her future and envision an even longer path. 

“Somebody put it into perspective before I won the gold,” Ko said. “They said, ‘Try to think of getting into the Hall of Fame as a gas station on the way to my final destination, and not my final destination. I think for a while, that was my goal. I was making it seem like, OK, [the Hall of Fame] was my end point, and I think after hearing that, that put it into perspective of saying, you know, it’s not like I’m going to get in the Hall of Fame and say, ‘Bye-bye, Golf.’

“I’m still planning to play. I think that just make it easier to say, you know, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, and I’m also going to focus on what’s in front of me. I think these past three weeks was kind of a representation of that scale.”

Ko’s caddie, Paul Cormack, who picked up her bag one year ago, said her boss seemed at ease at the Olympics like he hadn’t seen before. And after winning in Paris, Ko bounced around St. Andrews in just as breezy a fashion, even posing for a family photo on the back of the driving range Sunday afternoon. When in St. Andrews… 

But there were no podiums in Scotland. Only one player would win. And Ko seemed destined for second. 

WHEN SHE WALKED OFF THE 16th tee Sunday, Ko was six under and two shots behind the best player in the world, Nelly Korda, who had summoned the best golf of her week to shoot three-under on holes 7 thru 13. But improbably, Korda short-circuited from the 14th fairway and made a double bogey on a gettable par-5. On 16, Ko had chipped to three feet, pausing to make sense of what she saw on a leaderboard.

“The 3-footer kind of seemed a little bit longer at that time,” she said. “Because I thought it was a straightforward putt, but then I was looking at it from all sorts of directions.”

It may have been complete coincidence — the kind of mini-stretch in a wild and windblown 72-hole tournament that confirms convenient narratives (i.e., that once Ko knew she was in the lead, that’s when her best golf arrived). Coincidental as it may sound, though, the proof of Ko’s excellence will exist in perpetuity, across the street called Golf Place, at the R&A Museum.

From that nervy 3-footer to the house, Ko needed just eight strokes. On 17, she hit a perfect tee shot right on her line — the “Course” imprinted on the side of the Old Course Hotel. Then defied the sideways rain smacking her face with a low-launching 3-wood that chugged up onto the green, leaving her an easy two-putt. On 18, she zipped a lob wedge to eight feet and rolled in the birdie. Her sister, Sura, a former player herself, provided commentary: “That’s extra meaningful to her. She hasn’t birdied 18 all week.”

For the second time Sunday, Ko reached seven under — leaving her 30 minutes of nail-biting on the putting green to see if Lilia Vu, the defending champion, could do any better. The scenario produced a setting you don’t often see in this game: the clubhouse leader standing near the 18th green but with an uninhibited view. Between Ko and Vu were a white fence and 65 yards of links turf. Surrounding them were shaky iPhones and eyeballs. When Vu’s putt missed, Ko dropped her head into her hands. She was officially a three-time major champion. 

KO’S TEAM WAS READY TO PARTY. Her caddie is a Scotsman; he’s going to enjoy himself tonight. When I caught up with Ko’s husband, he was readying to crack his first celebratory beer. But his wife’s celebration? It won’t be anything special. At least not just yet. A burger for dinner, her Sunday night tradition, before that sunrise flight to Boston. This career moves on. But it doesn’t stop teaching us things.

“I played here when I was 16 in 2013,” Ko said Sunday night, the trophy on the table in front of her. “I don’t think I got to really enjoy and realize what an amazing place this is. And now that I’m a little older and hopefully a little wiser, I just got to realize what an historic and special place this golf course is, and it’s honestly been such a fairytale.”

It may sound cliche, but it’s also true. Winning an Open is one thing, but winning an Open in St. Andrews is another. The game was built and fashioned here. Sand was dragged from the nearby beach to create the mounds that define the most iconic golfing arena on earth. The greatest champions of the sport all have triumphed here. You see them in the greystone buildings that line the streets. Cam Smith’s picture is up on the wall in the R&A, holding the Claret Jug. Jack Nicklaus’ swing and signature is around the corner, hanging near the entrance of St. Andrews Golf Club.

Ko’s husband, Chung, has spent the week soaking up the scene. He is a golf nerd of the highest order, and this was his first trip to Scotland. You better believe he brought his sticks, grabbing tee times at Kingsbarns, down the coast, and Dumbarnie, down the coast even more. A round on the Old is high on his bucket list. A week of watching the Women’s Open will do that to you, especially when your bride is the victor.

“When she was playing, I’d go tour the R&A and St. Andrews Golf Club and just look at the history,” he said, a smile of pride, joy and who-knows-what’s-next on his face. “Just to win at this place is pretty amazing.”

The next time he visits, a familiar face will be on display.