Lydia Ko Mixtape 2019: In Defence Of Lydia Ko
Lydia Ko's 2019 LPGA Tour campaign is all wrapped up, bringing to a close another rugged year of golf for the kiwi legend. Three top-10 finishes in 24 tournaments, a few missed cuts and even more niggly little negative notes about Ko, mean that status-quo continues for Ko as she susses out life on the LPGA Tour. While I'd be silly to try and paint a picture that everything is honki-dory for Ko, I'll happily come to the defence of Ko and went looking for stuff that supported the idea of defending Ko.
Stats can be weird things, twisted and manipulated to suit an argument. Include one statistic to reinforce an argument and ignore another stat that disagrees with your argument ... and the stat that reinforced your argument. This is exactly what I'm doing; I have an intention of defending Ko and went looking for numbers that supported this narrative.
Not only do I need to make that clear before going down that route for transparency, this is an exercise in sussing out personal perspective. Some folks dwell in the negative and thus, focus on all that is negative with regards to Ko. Maybe if that's your vibe, you should endeavour to find more positive energy in your life. In following Ko rather closely in recent years, the single most important aspect of Ko is here positivity and how Ko has continued to smile, interacting beautifully with fans and battling on through adversity.
Young kiwis can learn a lot from Ko. On top of that is Ko growing up, becoming an adult and doing so in the spotlight as a professional athlete. It seems as though everyone on the outside assumed that this would be easy, or that in some irrational way assumed that life's easy and everything goes exactly to plan. Nah, this isn't just life, it's life mixed in with professional spot and generally understanding your place in the world. Somehow Ko keeps smiling and putting out delightful energy, which is an inspiration for me.
And with all that in mind, Ko is ranked 38th on the Rolex Women's World Rankings; still in the top-40 female players in the world. For context, Danny Lee is ranked 91st and Ryan Fox is ranked 142nd on the PGA Tour rankings. As I'll explore below, being in the top-40 on the LGPA Tour is a wee bit more difficult now than it was back in 2014 and while there's are obviously differences between the PGA and LPGA Tours, the LPGA Tour has experienced a fair amount of growth since Ko's arrival.
Lexi Thompson (USA) is the only player from the Rolex Rankings 2014 top-10, who is currently in the 2019 top-10. Thompson was 10th in 2014 and is 10th again in 2019, besides Thompson though there is a complete overhaul of players who are the best in the game and that feels like a nice sign of the LPGA's expansion.
In 2014, four players (the top-four) earned over $1.5million in Official Prize-Money.
In 2019, nine players earned over $1.5m in winnings.
In both years, three players earned over $2m. This means that the top-top-top-end is similar, in 2019 though there are more players performing at a higher level and this is obviously going to be reflected in Scoring Average as well; you gotta get better scores to get more dosh.
In 2014, four players averaged under 70 (per round).
In 2019, everyone in the top-10 averaged under 70.
The emergence of South Korea's golfing prowess has had a major influence on the rankings.
In 2014, there were three South Koreans in the top-10 for Prize-Money and one who earned over $1.5m. In 2019, there are five South Koreans in the top-10 for winnings and three of them finished as the leading trio, all winning over $2m.
In 2014, two South Koreans averaged under 70 and in 2019 this jumped out to six South Koreans averaging under 70.
Stacy Lewis (USA) was 1st in Prize-Money back in 2014. This year, Lewis is ranked 60th in Prize-Money.
Inbee Park (South Korea) was 2nd in Prize-Money back in 2014. This year, Park is ranked 26th.
Lyda Ko was 3rd in Prize-Money back in 2014. This year, Ko is ranked 48th.
Not only has there been an overhaul of the LPGA's top-tier via an influx of fresh players, Ko definitely isn't alone in hitting a plateau at the same time. Her comrades from 2014 in Lewis and Park sit in a rather similar position to Ko, which points to a general shift in the LPGA and less about Ko falling off a golf-cliff.
The overhaul of the top-tier and influx of new players has seen certain skills become more prominent - especially skills that aren't Ko's strength. As we'd expect via technology and a greater emphasis on strength and conditioning, Average Driving Distance has increased dramatically during this period.
Brittany Lincicome (USA) led the tour for Average Driving Distance with 271.462m. In 2019, that would have Lincicome ranked 12th.
12.381m has been added from 2014 to 2019 in Average Driving Distance. Anne van Dam (Netherlands) led the tour in distance with 283.843m.
Everyone in the top-10 this year, is hitting the ball further than the best from 2014. This is super relevant to Ko, because even though Ko was 2nd in Rolex Rankings and 3rd in Prize-Money back in 2014, Ko was ranked 66th in Average Drive-Distance averaging 249.583m. Not a whole lot of Ko's success back then stemmed from her drives, or distance gained off drives.
Ko's Average Driving Distance has dropped to 245.467m, which isn't a notable drop off. What is notable, is that as the LPGA Tour is driving much longer, Ko hasn't followed suit and took her Average Driving Distance ranking down from 66th in 2014 to 152 in 2019.
There could definitely be questions asked about how Ko hasn't followed the LPGA in driving longer. As Ko has never been a big driver though and relied primarily on her short-game, I'm not sure of Ko's capacity to gain distance on her drives; Ko has been swept over by the competition as the competition moves towards a more power-based style.
This flows into Greens in Regulation, which is the percentage of holes in which you get on to the green at least two shots less than par. So if you're banging a par 5, to get to the green in regulation, you would need to be on the green in 3 shots. Ko's Driving Accuracy has dipped from 79.2 percent of fairways hit (19th) to 70.1 percent in 2019 (102nd) and along with the average distance, this has seen Ko's GiR take a massive hit.
Ko was 7th in 2014, hitting 74.1 percent of GiR.
In 2019, Ko was 96th, hitting 67.7 percent of GiR.
Things get funky though when moving to Putting Average, where Ko has actually improved.
2014: 22nd with 29.60 putts-per-round.
2019: 7th with 29.15 putts.
Putting Average has largely stayed the same between 2014 and 2019. Two of the top-10 back in 2014 averaged less than 29 putts, in 2019 four players in the top-10 averaged less than 29 putts. Ko's putting remains in the same bracket, her slight improvement in putting though has been off-set by the disparity in work driving and along with the overhaul of players, the growth of driving distance feels like the biggest shift during Ko's time on the LGPA Tour.
We need only look at Stacy Lewis again, to see the difference in Driving Distance. In 2014, Lewis was 15th averaging 258.881m and in 2019, Lewis had dropped down to 108th averaging 253.955. Funnily enough, it's exactly the same for Inbee Park, who was 70th in 2014 averaging 249.064m and dropped down to 145th averaging 247.323m in 2019. Like Ko, these two were in the top-tier back in 2014 but the tour has left them in the dust with those who hit the ball further taking over.
Compared to Lewis and Park, Ko has done well to maintain her putting prowess. Lewis has gone from 24th to 45th and Park went from 4th to 27th; Ko's the only on of these three who has seen her putting average ranking improve.
Ko kinda needs to find a way to keep up with the best of the LPGA Tour in terms of how they get to the green. Instead of worrying about however Ko looks or pointing blame around different people, there is a genuinely specific area of Ko's golf that doesn't translate well to success on the LPGA Tour in 2019. Not only is Ko battling to deal with the changes in how golf is played, this has coincided with immense growth of female golf and a flooding of new players; many of whom are very good players from South Korea.
Perhaps Ko has played a role in these changes by inspiring female players around the world and even though there are some big shifts in the tour and Ko's performances, she hasn't fallen off that far; still in that top-40 despite all this shit. Most importantly though, Ko continues to inspire myself and others, setting an example of how to smile through adversity, to keep a positive vibe despite how others view the situation. It's not what happens to you, it's how you respond and Ko continues to respond to adversity like a hearty kiwi.
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Peace and love 27.