CME GROUP TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

November 23, 2024

Lydia Ko

Tiburon Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. All right, here with Lydia Ko at the CME Group Tour Championship. Just take us through the day today. Pretty clean scorecard.

LYDIA KO: Yeah, I really struggled on the greens yesterday. The greens got substantially faster than Thursday, so I think I was a bit tentative today because I didn't want to have these three- to six-footers coming back.

Holed a few good mid- to long-range birdie putts to shoot 67 again. Yesterday I didn't feel like I played bad, but just kind of got away from me. Definitely good to shoot a good score and kind of move in the right direction.

Hopefully that gives me good momentum for tomorrow.

Q. So when you're trying to get that speed dialed in, do you spend more time on the putting green after the round or this morning? How do you get adjusted?

LYDIA KO: Yesterday was pretty frustrating because there were multiple putts I thought the ball had stopped and I looked up again and it had rolled another like six feet.

The wind was playing a huge factor into just not only drying the greens, but moving the balls, like momentum away from it. So I clearly didn't calculate that very well.

After the round I honestly didn't want to overcomplicate it because I missed a few short putts and got some long-range distance control wrong.

I didn't feel like I was stroking it that bad and just wanted to reel that in a little bit and today just make sure that I wasn't hitting it too aggressively.

It's been a while where I felt like I could kind of ram it and I felt like I had pretty good pace on Thursday. Yesterday was just so wrong that it was almost like a new start. The speed is getting close to what it was like at Pelican last week.

Just being more cautious, especially when the grain is going away from me, too.

Q. Tomorrow do you kind of have - even though I know you said you have to be a little more cautious - do you still have a go-for-broke aggressive attitude trying to make up ground for the $4 million? What's the mindset?

LYDIA KO: I'm just going to focus on my game and stick to the strategy that I've been -- that I placed earlier in the week. I feel like that's been pretty good. The ball striking has been pretty consistent so far, so just kind of maintain that.

Just give myself a lot of good looks for birdies. I think if it's hard for one person I think it just means it's hard for multiple people, because I came off the course yesterday and so many people were like, oh, I had five bogeys in a row. I had three three-putts in a row. I'm like, I was on the same boat as them.

I think it's difficult and the course is playing soft, the fairways, but the green are getting firmer so you're still hitting longer clubs into some of those greens. For some pin positions it's really hard to get close to.

Just knowing which holes are more gettable and which holes are more birdie friendly I think is a smart way to play. I know I'm probably going to be quite a bit behind at the end of the day. All I can do is focus on my game.

I've shot a low score in the final round before, so just hope to do that. But I think the $4 million is like the last thing on my mind. I just want to shoot a good score and to just finish the season on a high here.

Q. You just said the 4 million is the last thing on your mind. Was there a check earlier in your career that was particularly impactful to your life, really meaningful?

LYDIA KO: I know I won a few events -- I have no idea how much the winning purse is. Obviously what Terry has done to give this kind of opportunity and the biggest purse that women's golfers are playing for is unbelievable.

He keeps breaking his own record and just keeps going up there. I'm excited to see how far women's golf is going to go and I think I we deserve that. Not only in my generation, but for the future generations that are out here watching us play.

But, yeah, I don't think -- I think the coolest moment was when I guess there was that $1 million in that glass box. I remember taking a photo of it, sitting on it. That was a really cool moment.

It's hard, right? You can't really put it into perspective like what that means because where you spend it and what you do with it, it's sometimes a million dollars is just a number.

And I think for all of us, as much as it's great to have these kind of opportunities the person that's going to win is more excited that they just won the Tour Championship than exactly to the dollar of how much they won.

But Terry has just been an unbelievable supporter, and I think because of him, like our major championships and other domestic events have just kept elevating and increasing the purses.

To see that and the growth in the 11 years that I've played, it's been really, really cool. You know, I get to play alongside the best female golfers every week and I think we deserve it. They deserve it.

So thanks to CME, AIG, Chevron, all the partners for just believing in to us.

Q. When did you sign with CME?

LYDIA KO: AIG Women's Open. Two for two straight. Terry has just been like an amazing supporter even before I signed with them. He sends me texts when I play well. Just to be able to represent him and his company and what they've done for our tour, I feel very grateful.

Hopefully I can keep playing well to make him proud.