ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Lydia Ko captured her third main title — and first in eight years — by breaking free from a logjam of world-class expertise to win the Ladies’s Open on the residence of golf Sunday, capping a summer time when she additionally took gold on the Olympic Video games.
The 27-year-old rolled in a left-to-right birdie putt on the storied 18th gap on the Outdated Course at St. Andrews to shoot 3-under 69 after which needed to wait to complete forward of top-ranked Nelly Korda, defending champion Lilia Vu and two-time champion Jiyai Shin.
That quartet of previous or current No. 1s shared the lead at one level down the stretch of an engrossing remaining spherical performed in chilly, blustery and moist circumstances earlier than ending in sunshine.
Ko had already completed her spherical and was ready close to the 18th inexperienced, doing stretches whereas sporting ear muffs, when Vu lined up a 20-foot putt for birdie that wanted to go in to pressure a playoff. It got here up brief, and Vu in the end made bogey to shoot 73 and drop to five underneath total alongside Korda (72), Shin (74) and Ruoning Yin (70) in a four-way tie for second place.
Ko coated her face along with her palms and wept within the embrace of her caddie after what she described as a “Cinderella-like story” over the previous two weeks.
“That is nearly too good to be true,” she mentioned on the trophy presentation.
It has been a golden summer time for Ko, who certified for the Corridor of Fame by profitable the gold medal on the Paris Olympics and now has the final word prize within the sport — a serious championship title on the residence of golf.
Her final main got here on the Chevron Championship in 2016. A yr earlier, she received the Evian Championship as an 18-year-old prodigy.
Ko was requested what feels higher: an Olympic gold medal, her first two majors or profitable a 3rd at St. Andrews?
“It is sort of like saying, ‘Do you want your mom higher or your father higher?'” Ko responded, eliciting laughter from the gang across the 18th inexperienced. “They’re all particular in their very own approach.”
Korda, in search of a second main title of a dominant 2024, began the ultimate spherical two pictures again of Shin, the champion from 2008 and 2012. By her tenth gap, Korda was within the outright lead after three birdies in a four-hole stretch after which was two strokes clear as Shin and Vu toiled at the beginning of the again 9 in depressing climate.
A turning level got here on the par-5 14th, which Ko birdied and Korda later doubled after flying the inexperienced and underhitting her chip again onto the inexperienced.
Ko performed the par-4 seventeenth, the well-known Street Gap, impressively. She hit hybrid to twenty toes and had two putts for par. She then hit a wedge shot shut at No. 18 earlier than draining the strain putt.
Korda was up on the seventeenth inexperienced and heard the cheers for Ko, simply earlier than making bogey after hitting her second into the Street Gap bunker.
Korda wanted eagle on the final — she might solely make par — leaving Vu as the one participant in a position to deny Ko the proper finish to what has proved an ideal summer time.
“Right here I’m as a three-time main champion,” Ko mentioned. “It is so surreal.”