It’s an off-week for the LPGA, but Lydia Ko joins Lexi Thompson and Jessica Korda in headlining the Ladies European Tour event this week — in Florida — for the latest installment of the Aramco Team Series at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The LPGA’s season-ending ADT Championship was held at Trump International for eight years.
This year’s total prize fund on the LET is a record-setting 35 million euros ($37M). There are once again six Saudi-backed events on the LET’s 2023 schedule, with the Aramco Team Series featuring five stops worldwide, each with a $1 million purse. The series began in Singapore last March.
Other Aramco stops include the Centurion Club in London next July, Hong Kong in October, and one final leg in Saudi Arabia Nov. 3-5 at Riyadh Golf Club. The events remain controversial given the wide-ranging human rights abuses Saudi Arabia has been accused of, especially toward women.
Ko began 2023 with a victory at the Aramco Saudi Ladies International, which featured a $5 million purse, but has yet to contend this season on the LPGA. She missed the cut at the year’s first major, the Chevron Championship, and hasn’t finished inside the top 30 since February.
Golfweek caught up with Ko ahead of the LET event to talk about her recent form, playing Pebble Beach Golf Links for the first time and how she fared caddying for husband Jun Chung on the U.S. Am Tour in Monterey, California, last month. Spoiler: She was “super proud.”
Here are excerpts from that conversation:
Lydia Ko of New Zealand plays her second shot on the first hole during the second round of The Chevron Championship at The Club at Carlton Woods on April 21, 2023 in The Woodlands, Texas. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
I think the last couple weeks the results weren’t as good as I’d like – missed cut at Chevron – but to be honest, last week, apart from the last day (she shot 77), and PV (Palo Verdes), a couple of those weeks, were actually not bad, but the results don’t show how it was. After Chevron, (instructor) Ted (Oh) and I put in some good work, nothing new or different, but we just put in some good quality time together. … I started off the season with a bang, winning back in Saudi again, which was really cool. We’re just going to keep working on the same things. I feel like it’s getting closer and closer.
There were a couple weeks I was frustrated. I really wasn’t sure, like ‘What’s…
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