\u201cMaybe if I do that, then I might lose motivation like Rory. I\u2019m sure he might have lost a bit of motivation, but at the same time, when a player is that good and is that calibre, I feel like he still doesn\u2019t like losing.<\/p>\n
Dame Lydia Ko: “I am really excited to see where my game is heading.” Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
\u201cThere might be the question in your head like, okay, what\u2019s next? And I\u2019ve had that question in my career at multiple points, and even after winning the silver medal in Rio, that was such a big goal of mine. After that was done, I had lost a little bit of sense of direction in my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the US Women\u2019s Open has always been a big star or key on the schedule in any season. I obviously haven\u2019t won that. So that\u2019s always a motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kiwi is coming off a tie for fifth at LPGA Thailand and a fourth in the Tournament of Champions. Two top 10s to start the season (she had four in 2025, including the Singapore win) show she\u2019s tracking well to start the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just outside of how many events I want to win and what tournament I want to win, I feel like my game is trending to the point where I know that if I just keep working on it, I\u2019ll just become a better golfer and the results kind of sort [themselves] out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m honestly excited for the process. I feel like if I do the process well, then everything else is going to kind of sort itself out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly am enjoying the work in between right now. And it\u2019s pretty hard to say when you\u2019ve been on tour for 13 years because sometimes I do turn up and I\u2019m like, \u2018okay, this again\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I am really excited to see where my game is heading, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m excited for this year. Because I just feel like I\u2019m becoming a little more consistent and stronger fundamentally as the golfer, Lydia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ko said coming into the HSBC Women\u2019s World Championship as defending champion doesn\u2019t change much.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think my mindset changes at all. Obviously, I\u2019ve got a lot of good memories to draw back from. And also, [I] kind of know that I can win at this golf course.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think outside of that, my course strategy, like course management, really doesn\u2019t change. A lot of us, it\u2019s literally a year later that we\u2019re here. So it\u2019s a whole new week,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMaybe if I do that, then I might lose motivation like Rory. I\u2019m sure he might have lost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[223813,64,63,25666,24978,9663,53378,246783,755,26456,33979,8835,53380,8848,53379,252808,252809,9664,85,6618,24351,1720],"class_list":{"0":"post-502794","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-appeared","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-catches","12":"tag-champ","13":"tag-championship","14":"tag-dame","15":"tag-everyone","16":"tag-golf","17":"tag-helps","18":"tag-hsbc","19":"tag-kiwi","20":"tag-ko","21":"tag-long","22":"tag-lydia","23":"tag-motivate","24":"tag-outlier","25":"tag-return","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-time","28":"tag-womens","29":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}