The 2024 season has been a roller coaster ride for Lydia Ko. She kickstarted the year with a win at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in January, followed by a runner-up finish at the LPGA Drive On Championship. However, her performance has been on a downhill trajectory since February.

Lydia Ko only managed one top-10 finish until last month. The 27-year-old missed back-to-back cuts at the Mizuho Americas Open and the U.S. Women’s Open. It wasn’t until last month that she regained momentum, culminating in a gold medal win at the 2024 Paris Olympics. With the final major of the women’s circuit about to begin, is she part of the 144-player field?

The 2024 AIG Women’s Open is set to kick off in just a few hours. According to the official tournament website, the New Zealand professional golfer will be competing for one of the highest purses of the season—a whopping $9 million. She has participated in this event both as a professional and as an amateur.

Lydia Ko received the Smith Salver Award, which is given to the amateur with the lowest score at the AIG Women’s Open, back in 2012, during her debut. She finished tied for 17th place with a 10-over score, just one stroke ahead of Holly Clyburn, her closest competition for the award.

Her best performance at the AIG Women’s Open came three years later, in 2015, when she tied for third place with So Yeon Ryu, just four strokes behind Inbee Park, who won the trophy. However, Ko claimed the trophy and a whopping $181,087 just a year after turning pro. But after such a long career, and after announcing her retirement from the Olympics following her achievement of all three medals, will Lydia Ko retire soon?

Lydia Ko still has 3 years as a pro

At the ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open last week, the Kiwi pro revealed that this won’t be her last season! She plans to return in the 2025 season with a bang. Although she had previously stated her intention to retire by 30, it seems the newly inducted LPGA Hall of Famer has reconsidered her plans. A few months ago, she was puzzled as to why she even made that statement.

Ko doesn’t want to stop at just achieving Hall of Fame status—she wants to continue competing at the highest level for as long as possible. “As long as I’m competitively playing, I want to win as much as I can and compete at the highest level and I want to retire, still loving the game and still playing well, not because I feel I can’t compete anymore,” she said.

However, she also mentioned that she doesn’t want to overstay her welcome and risk seeing her statistics decline, much like Tiger Woods. So, she plans to retire with sweet memories, at the right time. “I don’t want my goal to just stop at the Hall of Fame,” Ko concluded.