Lydia Ko felt 'very left out' before LPGA's International Crown change

When the LPGA schedule comes out every year, Lydia Ko sits down and highlights the ones she’s thinking about playing.

For this season, she started out highlighting 10. That list included the five majors and tournaments where she was defending, like this week’s Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions.

There were still a few more she thought she needed to play for various reasons and the list grew to 15.

Then, as it turns out, for the first time in her career, the New Zealander is now eligible for the International Crown, a team event that now features a World Team for stars who don’t otherwise qualify. Suddenly, the number events of exceeded 20.

Ko came to the conclusion that if she still wants to play, she’s not going to “half do it.” From the sound of it, the LPGA’s 75th anniversary season will include a full year of Ko.

“Some people said you achieved it all,” said Ko. “Why do you still want to do it? I still feel like there is so much golf ahead, and things that I want to improve on as a golfer.”

And, as she noted after winning the AIG Women’s British Open at St. Andrews last year, she’d like to complete the career grand slam. Ko completed somewhat of an Olympic slam by winning gold in Paris last summer, adding to her silver and bronze. The victory put her in the LPGA Hall of Fame at the tender age of 27.

“To win five and all be different ones,” said Ko of the majors, “it takes a very small group of people that have done it.”

The LPGA recognizes seven players with having achieved the career grand slam, with Inbee Park being the most recent in 2015. Although the LPGA now has five majors, the tour decided players who have won four different majors available in their careers will have accomplished the career grand slam.

Ko has won three different majors: 2015 Evian, 2016 ANA Inspiration (now Chevron) and 2024 AIG Women’s British Open. She's still chasing the U.S. Women's Open and KPMG Women's PGA.

“I think the goal was I want to peak at the majors,” said Ko of structuring her schedule.  “Sometimes I think, OK, you work hard and just play the majors.

“For me, I think it's always good to have some sort of the momentum, whether it's playing the week before or at least having some sort of play. So when I was kind of structuring my schedule around that, I started adding more events. Obviously, the International Crown was a cool surprise as well."

Getting a chance to compete in the Hanwha Lifeplus International Crown means a great deal to Ko, who would join France’s Celine Boutier, Canada’s Brooke Henderson and Peiyun Chien of Taiwan on the four-person team if the race ended today.

Ko admitted that she has been “pretty annoyed” to be left out of the mix all these years.

“I haven't really had the opportunity to play many match play events properly since Lorena's event,” said Ko, referring to the 2017 Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico. “Not getting into these other team match play tournaments, I felt very left out. I think internally I may have criticized the tournaments because I just wanted to play so much. It wasn't about the event, but it was like my own frustration.”

She wasn’t alone in that sentiment.

“For a really long time I've just sat and watched that event on TV,” said Henderson. “I've always wanted to be a part of it.”

For two of the game’s most popular players, there’s finally something new to chase.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Lydia Ko plans full season for 2025, including International Crown