Lydia Ko grabs her third LPGA Tour victory of the year

Top-ranked Lydia Ko won the NW Arkansas Championship on Sunday for her third LPGA Tour victory of the year. At the Pinnacle Country Club, the 19-year-old closed championships on Sunday with 17 under par, making the least par record for the contest.

Grabbing her third win following ones in KIA Classics and ANA Inspiration, Ko received 300,000 dollars in prize money. Three wins are the maximum for this season. In the past two years, she had achieved three wins in November 2014 and August 2015. The upward trend is attributable to her trying to be in fit ahead of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. In this season, Ko played in 13 games and ranked in top 10 for nine times. Ko plans to take a rest before the U.S. Open next week, and will get vaccination to be prepared for the Olympics. While top ranking Korean golf players gave up playing in the Olympics, Ko said, "It is a great honor to be able to compete in the Olympics. It will be great if I can stand on the medal stage."

While Ko played stably on the last day of the competition, Morgan Pressel who competed with Ko in the same group collapsed with three consecutive bogies. Ko at the 18th hole made a second shot that made the ball fall into the lake and also shot her fourth that passed the green to fringe. However, she managed to stick the ball with a putter to the pin, and then recorded a bogie to keep her victory.

While Ko was boasting herself as strong gold medal candidate, other Korean female golfers kept silent in the NW Arkansas Championship on Sunday as Kim Se-young failed at a cut and Jeon In-ji and Yang Hee-young ended the championships at a joint 50th.

김종석기자 kjs0123@donga.com