Lydia Ko is winning at the same clip as a young Tiger Woods
Lydia Ko isn’t Tiger Woods, and we’re not trying to make her out to be, but the 18-year-old Kiwi has a career trajectory that looks a lot like that of the 14-time major winner.
Ko won her ninth LPGA title on Sunday and first major title at The Evian Championship, becoming the youngest female major champion and second-youngest major winner in history. She’s done that in her first 61 starts on the LPGA Tour while missing just a single cut, earlier this year at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
By comparison, Woods won seven times, including a major, in his first 61 starts. That works out in Ko’s favor. It also works out for Ko that her first 15 LPGA events were as an amateur, including two wins. Woods’ first 14 PGA Tour starts were as part of the unpaid set.
If the Woods comparison isn’t your cup of tea, how about comparing Ko’s first 61 starts to what Annika Sorenstam, Ms. 59 herself, did in her first 61?
Sorenstam didn’t win until her 31st start, taking the 1995 U.S. Women’s Open. She went on to win six times in her first 61 starts, including a successful U.S. Women’s Open title defense in 1996. At the 61-start mark, Sorenstam was 25. The Swede wound up walking away with 10 majors and 72 total LPGA wins.
Ko has said she only intends to play until she’s 30 years old, but that still gives another 12 years and almost 250 more career starts. If that’s the case and Ko wins at a similar clip as her first 59 LPGA starts, she’ll wind up with almost 45 LPGA wins.
Given the accelerated pace at both which Woods and Sorenstam won in their later 20s, if Ko can mirror their win rate, she may surpass them both.
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
