After three wins, a wedding, and sitting on the Women’s Rolex Rankings summit, Lydia Ko was not expecting 2023 to be a drought year for her. But she bravely faces reality and admits to not having had a great season. She finally opens up about her physical and mental state, both professionally and personally.

The LPGA star is trying to prove the metal of her game at the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G. While her first round brought a glimmer of hope with her first score in the 60s since the Amundi Evian Championship, day 2 witnessed a fall with her scoring a 73. And while this adds to her worries as she sits at the T36 spot in Cincinnati, Ko makes an honest revelation about her “ups and downs”!

Lydia Ko spills the beans on her game

In a post-round interview on Friday, the reporter asked Lydia Ko how she had been with her game and otherwise. And the nineteen-time LPGA tour winner responded from an honest and vulnerable space. She recalled her last year and called it a “Cinderella story.”

“You know, off the golf course, getting married to the person I love the most and, you know, winning CME, the last one of the year, it was kind of the cherry on top of the cake,” she said. However, Lydia Ko also talked about the power of change and the unpredictability of how the next season will look.

She further analyzed her game. And mentioned that she might have put a lot of pressure on herself to perform a certain way coming into this year from the last. “You know, you do want to continue to be on a good momentum and play well when you are playing well because I’ve gone through my own ups and downs, and when things aren’t going well, it’s not very easy to come back out of that.”

She felt a wake-up call when she lost the Chevron Championship in April. Although true to her nature, she also found something good in that. Per Lydia Ko, it seemed reasonable to take a step back and reevaluate her game.

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Ko also mentioned the good things about her game. She believes that her short game has been good since last year. Due to this, a few shots are landing well. And that slight silver lining has her holding on to her “far from perfect” game at the moment, as she fights the self-pressure of trying to be perfect!

Ko is holding on to her glimmer of hope

While mentioning her round 1 in Cincinnati, Lydia Ko called it a round “far from perfect.” She carded five birdies and one bogey to finish the round at 4-under 68. Her approach to this score was that one tries to bring things together and continues to grind. It will eventually happen. Perhaps that is why her opening at the Kroger Queen City Championship came off as strong compared to her last few matches.

In a humbling admission, she acknowledged that it is not easy to play golf, like drawing a line from point A to point B. Birdies do not happen like that. She knows this but wants to start trusting this approach to remove the pressure from herself.

Do not let her positive outlook make you wonder if Lydia Ko is upset about her game or not, because she is. She wants to end this season strong, just like the last one. It has been frustrating and disappointing for her to play this season and not bear fruit. But she plans to move on from that and regain momentum once more.

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