In 2023, no victory from the LPGA Tour was celebrated and this could not be repeated in 2024. Lydia Ko (-14) has started the year with a victory in the Tournament of Champions and will place in the showcases of her home, precisely in Lake Nona in Orlando, the club that hosts this meeting with the winners of the Tour in the last two campaigns, her twentieth trophy on the American tour.
Not only that, the former World Number One adds one more point in the race towards the Hall of Fame. “It’s not a priority but if it comes…”, she had come to say before this event of illustrious. Well, she has come so close that she is already at the entrance of the Hall of Fame, a very difficult place to enter and that the New Zealander has in sight. In addition, she quickly gets going to prepare her big goal of the course: the Olympic Games in Paris. Ko participated in the previous two and grabbed the silver and bronze; only gold remains and she will go for it in France this summer.
Beginning 2024 with her 20th LPGA Tour title 💪
Lydia Ko is the #HGVLPGA champion! pic.twitter.com/WAe1TSOOEV
— LPGA (@LPGA) January 21, 2024
The final round of the Tournament of Champions was not a formality for Lydia, as Alexa Pano, the 19-year-old American who won her first professional victory last summer in Northern Ireland, was two strokes behind and her challenge was to make the New Zealander doubt from the beginning. Further behind were the rest of the direct rivals.
But the favourite controlled the situation from the start. Both signed five consecutive pars and on the 6th Ko extended the cushion, as where she sealed her first birdie, Pano made her first mistake and the distance increased to four strokes. Brooke Henderson (-10), defending champion, tightened from the 7th with a poker of successes that she linked consecutively to put some fear into the first two. It was a pity that the Canadian stopped there and spurred on Ko and Pano more. However, it was worth it to achieve a meritorious third position because as she said during the week: “It’s not easy to mentally handle the situation of being the reigning champion”. She fought until the end, good for her.
On the 9th and 10th, the main candidate practically decided the tournament in her favour. Ko linked two birdies for only one of Pano, so the income continued to grow in favour of the oceanic player residing in Florida. Lydia added her first mistake on the 11th, compensated on the 15th, and allowed herself the luxury of puncturing on the 18th without jeopardizing the victory. Pano showed courage until the end and, if she didn’t win, at least tie for second place, as she did with birdies at 14, 16 and 17. Alexa has the makings of a champion.
With the podium defined, Ayaka Furue, first leader of the tournament with her sensational -7, Ally Ewing and Cheyenne Knight, with -8, shared the fourth place, and Rose Zhang and Charley Hull finished hand in hand with seven less, seventh in the table. The two best in the world, Lilia Vu (-1) and Ruoning Yin (PAR), concluded in Lake Nona in some discreet places: eighteenth and nineteenth, respectively.
