Lydia Ko won the Lotte Championship this Saturday, author of a record score of 260 (-28), leaving behind her closest pursuers at 7 lengths. Céline Herbin, the only Frenchwoman still in the running, finished far from the lead in 69th place with a last lap in 75 (+3) -6 total.

Lydia Ko wins the Lotte Championship

© LPGA

Lydia Ko, flew over the last round of the Lotte Championship like the previous ones this Saturday in Hawaii, determined to end a period of 1084 days of famine, closing his last lap by improving his personal record with a score of 260 ( -28). Ko finishes with 7 strokes ahead of his closest pursuers including the Koreans Inbee Park (63) et Sei Young Kim (65), the young Irishwoman Leona maguire (67) and the American Nelly korda (71)

The New Zealander, who scored the lowest score in history on 54 holes, was only one stroke ahead of Nelly korda at the start of the last lap. While Korda did not birdie before the 11th hole, Ko for his part had seven birdies virgin bogeys, securing the victory with a solid card of 65 recording his 16th success on the LPGA Tour.

« A lot of things are going through my mind right now"Ko said moments later, sharing his thoughts:" When you are in the position to win and it doesn't happen, you doubt. If I said, no, I didn't doubt myself at all, with my hand on my heart, there were times I wondered: " Hey, I don't know if I'll ever be back in the winner's circle. "..." To be in this situation again is obviously super cool. You know, with Jordan Spieth et Hideki Matsuyama who have won the last two weeks - and I know it's been a while since they won too - it gave me some hope and the idea that maybe I could follow that trend. "

Impressive statistics ...

Korda, Sei Young Kim, Inbee Park and Leona Maguire all shared second, well behind Ko, who surprisingly has only made one bogey on the last 100 holes - 38 on his last five laps.

At only 23 years old, the former world No. 1 double holder of a major, had already won 16 victories on the LPGA circuit, his last victory dating back to 2018 at the Mediheal Championship.

After several changes of coach and caddy his game began to recover last summer under the leadership of when the LPGA resumed after its pandemic hiatus. Ko was then in the lead after 54 holes at the LPGA Classic Marathon in Ohio last July, but a score of 73 on the last round left him one point behind winner Danielle Kang.

Before she was 19 Lydia Ko won 17 world titles, including two major. Tiger Woods hadn't achieved this performance until he was almost 24 years old.

After Saturday's victory, she is set to climb back up to 11th place to quickly return to the top 10 in the Rolex rankings.

Ko told a story on Saturday about how she couldn't sleep on the eve of last fall's Marathon Classic final despite a four-stroke lead. She then led by five with six holes to go before struggling down the straight and watching Danielle Kang pass her to win the title. She attributed this failure to putting too much pressure on herself, and it also didn't help that she hadn't experienced conflict in a while.

She didn't have those issues sleeping on another 54-hole lead on Friday night.

“I slept really well last night,” Ko said. “I just said, 'Hey, my fate is already chosen, and I'm just going to play the best golf I can get today. … I think that proves it to me, and I know that is the most important thing. "

Céline Herbin falls in the home stretch

Celine Herbin only Frenchwoman still in contention after the elimination of Perrine Delacour after the second round, finished very far from the lead in 69th place, at -6 total. Like the first 12 holes where the Normande was perfectly in place, scoring 3 birdies on the 1, 8 and 9th holes pointing to -3 and -12 total after twelve holes. Unfortunately a lack of precision in the home stretch cost him 1 double and 4 bogeys in 6 holes which relegated him to 69th place on the leaderboard for his first tournament of the season.

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Lydia Ko at the helm of the Lotte Championship