Can you remember the panic-stricken countdown to the year 2000 when boggle-eyed boffins whipped the world into an appalling lather with apocalyptic predictions about the earth-shuddering impact on technology of the Millennium Bug?

Planes would fall out of the sky, kettles would rise up and hold pensioners hostage in their own homes, microwave ovens would storm the Houses of Parliament and overthrow the government and the various circuit boards, pistons, valves and tangle of wires that had kept Bruce Forsyth fully operational since the Industrial Revolution would explode amid a devastating malfunction. And what happened? Planes landed at their destination on schedule, kettles shuddered to an uneventful boil, microwaves stuck to heating up inedible swill and old Brucie kept ploughing on. The status quo was preserved. Here in 2015, it's a case of the status Ko.

Lydia Ko was only two when all that pandemonium about the millennium was in full cry but, 15 years on, she continues to break more records than a Hi-Fi that was knocked giddy by the effects of that aforementioned Y2K bug ... which, as it turned out, didn't cause chaos.

At the end of a week in which the Royal & Ancient and the Ladies' Golf Union announced they were having exploratory discussions about the possibility of a merger and pulling resources to bolster participation in golf, Ko continued her one-woman crusade to inspire, excite and dominate in the female game. If the sight of a 17-year-old smiling and giggling her way down the final fairway en route to winning Sunday's Women's Australian Open doesn't invigorate and influence a young generation then nothing will. In the cut-and-thrust of professional golf, Ko still makes the game look fun. She will return to her native land this week for the New Zealand Open - an event she won when she was a 15-year-old amateur - as an all-conquering heroine.

As the youngest player ever to assume the position of world no 1 - even Tiger Woods was a wizened 21-year-old by the time he reached the top of the men's global order - many were wondering how this remarkable teen would handle all the baggage and burdens of heightened expectation when she rose to this lofty position a few weeks ago. The answer has been an emphatic 'nae bother' it seems.

"Lydia just takes it in her stride," said her coach, David Leadbetter after watching his pupil rack up the sixth LPGA Tour win of her career. "She walks on this cloud. She doesn't get overly excited. She doesn't get overly down."

Ko appears to have found some kind of golfing utopia and, having won a title in just her second event since rising to the top of the world rankings, she is relishing the task of carrying this added weight. The Korean-born Kiwi has nothing to prove but she will be determined to improve.

Mercifully, her career has been allowed to progress without the onerous sideshows that derailed the development of another of golf's female prodigies, Michelle Wie. It's now 10 years since Wie's ill-fated cameo appearances alongside the men in a series of PGA, European and Asian Tour events 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. Had PT Barnum been around, he probably would have ditched the Bearded Lady from his freak show and made Wie his star exhibit of roll-up, roll-up, point and gawp curiosity.

Amid that palaver, the Royal & Ancient made something of an historic addition to the entry form of the Open Championship, with female golfers being allowed to enter at the regional qualifying stage provided they had met the criteria of finishing in the top-five of the women's majors. At the time, those flag-waving champions of righteousness were in triumph as they drooled at the prospect of a Wie or an Annika Sorenstam pegging it up alongside the fellas in the world's oldest major while blissfully ignoring the fact that they would have to successfully negotiate their way through an 18-hole regional qualifier and a 36-hole final qualifier to get there. Away from the general hoopla and media-driven hype, the reality of the situation was that the women themselves simply weren't that interested. In the 10 years since that change to the Open entry form was made, not one application from a female competitor has been received by the R&A . The good ladies have their own competitive matters to focus on without distracting themselves with some kind of wild golfing goose chase. For the dedicated, driven, yet down to earth Ko, the quest for world domination should keep her busy.

AND ANOTHER THING

On Oscar Sunday, James Hahn produced his own far-fetched Hollywood script. The 33-year-old former shoe salesman, who was ranked 297th in the world at the start of the Northern Trust Open, held off Dustin Johnson and Paul Casey in a play-off to win his first PGA Tour title. "I heard kids before the play-off saying 'it's going to be Paul Casey, Dustin Johnson and some other guy'," said Hahn. In this unpredictable game of great opportunity, it just takes that one wonderful week to make a name for yourself.