Lydia Ko hit 17 greens and didn’t miss a fairway in an opening 5-under 67 at the BMW Championship in her native South Korea. The 27-year-old carded yet another bogey-free round, her 135th dating back to the 2014 season, which is 51 more than anyone else in that span.
Ko’s recent surge in form – she hasn’t finished outside the top 10 in her last six starts worldwide, including three victories – can be credited at least in part to a change, quite literally, off the tee.
Put simply: She now tees the ball lower with her driver.
“I think there was a time when I started not hitting my drivers well,” said Ko, “but then I don’t know if it’s a subconscious thing, but like my 3-wood, I was hitting it really well, and I feel pretty comfortable hitting driver off the deck, anyway, when the lie is decent.
Making the turn at 10-under
Over her last 45 holes, Lydia Ko is 20-under par
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“I combined all of the things that I was doing well and something that I felt comfortable. Sometimes when I know for a fact that I want to almost guarantee that the ball is going to go from left to right, I always do that.”
When Ko won the Kroger Queen City Championship last month, she missed only five fairways in the entire tournament, hitting 91 percent. In her last three starts on the LPGA going into the BMW, she hit 88 percent of her fairways, according to KPMG Performance Insights. In the previous six starts, however, she’d hit only 53 percent of the fairways.
The dip in fairways hit began at the Cognizant Founders Cup in May (61 percent) and extended through the CPKC Women’s Open (48 percent). The low point came at the U.S. Women’s Open when she hit only 35 percent of the fairways.
The shift began at the Paris Olympics.
Lydia Ko of New Zealand tees off on the 18th hole during Day Three of the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews Old Course on August 24, 2024, in St. Andrews, Scotland. (Photo by Luke Walker/Getty Images)
“When she tees it down, we all know that this is the shot that she needs to find the fairways,” said Golf Channel analyst Karen Stupples. “We know that it’s her fairway finder.”
After Round 1 in South Korea, Ko trails leaders Hannah Green, Ashleigh Buhai and Jenny Shin, who all opened with a 64, by three strokes. The winningest active player on the LPGA with 22 titles, Ko won the 2022 BMW by four strokes.
“It’s kind of become, you know, part of my, like, strategy,” said Ko of teeing the ball lower, “and sometimes when it’s firm, like in Cincinnati, it goes further than my normal drives. It might not carry as far, but runs out there.
“So it’s definitely like a good 15th club, kind of, that I’ve had in the bag. For sure it’s not really a club at all golf courses, but I think I’ve been able to be smart and utilize it well to my advantage.”