You know the world has gone stark raving bonkers when folk will queue for eight hours at a new outlet of Krispy Kreme just to get their fevered fingers on a bloomin’ doughnut. It’s mind-boggling instances like this that make your jowls shudder at the appalling prospect of Christmas shopping; that annual frenzy of manic, boggle-eyed purchasing and shelf-clearing that resembles a bubbling shoal of piranha fish stripping a drowned gazelle down to its bare bones … only much less civilised.
If great swathes of the general public are happy to elbow, kick, bite and gouge their way to the front of the line in the name of an edible, sugar-glazed toroidal ring, then what in the name of Betsy will they do for the last Jurassic World Indominus Rex toy figure in the shop come shutting time on Christmas Eve? It’s time to gird the loins … and with girders that are hopefully a bit stronger than the ones on the Forth Road Brig’.
Lydia Ko has more pressing issues to think about than a few presents. For a start, she keeps dropping her mobile phone. “My mom doesn’t like it,” said the 18-year-old. “Phones are expensive.”
Typical teenager eh? Of course, Ko is not your typical teenager and having recently added to her growing riches by picking up the $1.5 million bonus for winning the LPGA Tour’s Race to the CME Globe rankings, she could probably afford to buy the entire mobile network of her native New Zealand.
However, it’s little, run-of-the-mill musings about something as trivial as a phone that remind you that she is, in fact, just a down to earth lassie who can conquer all before on the global golf stage but can still get a ticking off from her mother about her fumbling carelessness. Breaking things is in her nature, though.
Having shattered more records than a rampaging bull in a second-hand vinyl shop, Ko has managed to scale previously uncharted heights in the game while keeping her feet firmly rooted on the ground, if you know what I mean. Mercifully, those around her have nurtured her wisely and Ko’s career has been allowed to progress without the onerous sideshows that derailed the development of another of golf's female prodigies, Michelle Wie. The Hawaiian was forced into a series of ill-fated cameo appearances alongside the men as her management, the marketing men and her parents embarked on an increasingly embarrassing exercise in exploitation which did nothing for Wie or the women's game as a whole.
In a world where fairly modest conquests are championed as if they were the greatest triumph in the history of civilization, Ko’s continued achievements have not been given the widespread credit they deserve. If this was a male golfer, the euphoria would be unbridled. Yet Ko, who won five titles this year including her first major crown, stands alone as the most remarkable teenager, not just in golf, but in any sport.
The best athletes have that extra quality that keeps them calm and collected when their rivals are quivering under the pressure, they manage to win when folk expect them to win and they strive to set new targets, and achieve them, even though the burden of expectation can be the toughest opponent of the lot. Ko continues to tick all of these boxes.
Since winning her first LPGA Tour title as a 15-year-old amateur, Ko is now into the teens of triumphs and her consistency remains astonishing. In 65 career starts, she has missed only one cut. At 17, she was the youngest player, male or female, to reach the top of the world rankings and at 18 years, four months and 20 days this season, became the youngest female major champion. Only Young Tom Morris, the first superstar of golf, was younger when he won the first of his four Opens at the age of 17 way back in 1868.
Ko is a true phenomenon and she leaves those other golfing phenomenons in her wake. Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth, for instance, were 20, 19 and 19 respectively when they won their first tour titles. Annika Sorenstam, arguably the greatest female golfer with 10 majors among her 72 LPGA Tour wins, didn’t start racking up the victories until she was 24. At 18, Ko already has 13.
Ko has stated that she wants to retire at 30. At her current rate, there may not be much left to achieve by then.
AND ANOTHER THING
When the Scottish Golf Union (SGU) and the Scottish Ladies’ Golfing Association (SLGA) finally merged to form one governing body for the amateur game, the alliance was hailed as a “once in a generation opportunity to change.”
It seems it will be business as usual, though. Hamish Grey, a likeable Kiwi and the SGU chief executive since 1999, was named as head of the new Scottish Golf body last week. New ideas? A fresh start? Or, after 16 years at the helm, will it be more of the same?
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here