Mrs Ko wins for the second time in Saudi Arabia

Lydia Ko continues to marvel.

Last November she won the biggest prize in women’s golf when taking out the Tour Championship in the United States for a first prize of $US2 million which took her world ranking back to No 1.

The following month she got married and last month, at her first start for this year, she won the Saudi Ladies’ International in Saudi Arabia. The tournament carried a first prize of 701,000 euros which converts to $NZ1.19 million.

Ko had won the same tournament in 2021 and the latest win was the 26th of the 26-year-old’s career.

The New Zealand star fired a final round of four under par 68 to record a one-shot victory. Ko headed into the final day in second place, just one shot off the lead, having shot rounds of 64, 69 and 66 on the first three days.

It was a good start for Ko in the final round with a birdie on the first, before a dropped shot on the second but she soon picked up another birdie on the sixth.

Three more birdies on her back nine was enough for Ko to seal victory with a total of 21-under-par.

“I’m two for two on this golf course,” said Ko afterwards.

“Clearly something is going for me. This is a golf course where, in the last few days and when I played in 2021, there were a few players that went from the back that would shoot low scores, so I just wanted to focus on my game.

“I don’t think I was setting myself up for a lot of birdie opportunities on the front nine, but I knew that every hole could be a birdie opportunity, so it was that mindset and I wanted to be aggressive.

“The 18th hole was a lot uglier than I would have liked to picture, but in the end it’s definitely nice to get the win this week.”

It wasn’t until her birdie on No 17 that the two-time major championship winner went into the outright lead and held on to win.

“The scoreboard is right behind the green, so it was really hard to miss,” Ko explained. “I was more curious coming down the last because you could make eagle like Lilia [Vu] did yesterday, and so did Em [Pedersen].

“With this pin position I knew it would be tricky, but I just wanted to hit a couple of good shots. I had a really good second shot to set myself up for a wedge coming in. It was a little bit more stressful than I would’ve liked, but it doesn’t matter how you get it done.

“I’ve just been very grateful. A lot of great things happening, especially in the last few months again and again. You don’t know if this is real or not, but I’ve been trying to enjoy being out on the golf course.

“I’m playing with the world’s best. The field this week was really good, so I knew it was going to be a challenge. The first one of the year is really hard because you don’t have anything to base yourself off. You don’t know if you’re going to play well or badly. The start definitely helped, I stayed really patient and I was not as nervous as I thought I would be.”