Lydia Ko calls this the most consistent golf of her career, which is saying something for the former World No. 1. Last week at the BMW Ladies Championship, Ko claimed her second title of the season. She has a whopping 11 top-5 finishes in 20 starts and leads the tour in top-10 percentages at 65 percent. She has 13 top-10 finishes.
Ko often speaks about how the depth of the tour has increased during her time on tour. Her 18th LPGA title came 10 years after she broke through to win for the first time as a 15-year-old amateur in 2012.
“I think every season is really hard to compare because not only am I trying to improve,” said Ko, “but every single player is, like, trying to improve, and I think that’s why you can see it by the score.
“At all of these championships, the score for the cut is getting lower, the score to win is getting lower, and that’s why I said earlier if you have one OK round, that puts you so much further back compared to maybe before where that could have been OK, and you could have still won.
“I think just the level of play and the level of women’s golf right now is so high that it’s just really, really difficult to win.”
Ko leads the Vare Trophy race for lowest scoring average, an award she also won last year. How much tougher is it out there? Here’s a closer look at how scoring on the LPGA has evolved over the past decade.