Michelle Wie, eat your heart out. Turns out, Wie isn’t the only golfing phenom to start before she could drive. That’s right, 14-year-old New Zealand amateur Lydia Ko can be added to that list.
Ko even one-up’d Wie this past weekend when Ko become the youngest winner of a professional golf tour event. She won the women’s New South Wales Open.
By four strokes, no less.
And while Michelle Wie might be the most famous under-aged golfer, she isn’t even who Ko was competing with for the title of “youngest winner” of a professional golf tournament.
Ko actually broke Japananse golfer Ryo Ishikawa’s record. Ishikawa was 15 years, 8 months, when he won his first tournament.
Thankfully, Ko was allowed to revel in the moment after her victory.
“To be part of history is like a miracle,” Ko told reporters. “It’s not something you can have by clicking your fingers.”
But it didn’t last long. The Korean-born New Zealander was right back to business.
“My driver and iron play were probably the nicest to me over the past two days,” Ko told reporters. “I also putted well, but I was in good position on most of the greens because I was able to make approaches from good places on the fairways.”
Ko plans to continue to play. She’s already looking at more than 20 tournaments this year. She’ll be at the Australian Masters at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast next.
Ko was proud to win her first tournament and said that one of her role models was, in fact, America’s Michelle Wie.
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