Par for the course
A golf-heavy edition highlighting a story that does Ko justice, PLUS: Your chance to win a stunning book celebrating the best NZ courses, and some juicy (non-golf) links.
Writing about golf, the game rather than the wider industry, is difficult.
That might sound counterintuitive given that when play starts on an average Thursday morning at an average tour event, close to 150 players will tee it up and hit on average between 71 and 72 strokes each. You should not need me to tell you that’s a lot of potential action to report on during a day’s play.
Compare it to, say, a day of test cricket where even if both sides are committed to keeping up with the stated 90 overs of play per day — and let’s face it, they’re not — that’s a maximum of 540 micro-dramas per day, compared to more than 10,000 in golf.
Don’t even get me started on rugby union and the 34 minutes and 18 seconds the ball was in play during the latest Rugby World Cup.
You have all that content on a daily basis and yet golf reporting tends towards the torpid; the “such-and-such birdied the reachable par five sixth to move to two under” variety. You will read a lot more clunky, poorly written, quotes-driven golf reports1 than you will have memorable ones.
So when you find a good one, treasure it.
Golf.com’s Sean Zak nailed this report on Lydia Ko’s third major.
Here’s the drop intro:
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 5.50am flight to Boston. The show goes on.
The report continues for another 1500 or so words. It’s detailed, contextual, insightful and has splashes of colour that elevate it. Zak straddles that difficult line of combining a victory salute with a backgrounder and yet it never feels weighed down.
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 kinds of thoughts were going through my mind.”
There were final-round details to keep the golf aficionados happy:
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.”
If Zak was like me, then he’s got a a hell of a kick out of watching Ko and her Olympic-Open double.
It might be hypothetical because who knows what I would have felt if her success had been unbridled, but the fact her career path has not been linear makes her story all the more interesting. The child prodigy has endured some adult moments of angst and introspection.
How very human.
Here’s something to look out for over the next few months as Ko’s potential retirement looms.