Story: Golf

Lydia Ko and Cecilia Cho, 2011

Lydia Ko and Cecilia Cho, 2011

Friends and rivals Lydia Ko (left) and Cecilia Cho were about to head to Europe to compete against each other in an international women's amateur competition when this photo was taken in Auckland in June 2011. Ko was then the world's number-one amateur women's golfer. In 2012 Cho began playing professional golf as a South Korean.

In 2012 Ko won the Canadian Open by three strokes, becoming the youngest ever winner on the LPGA Tour. In early 2015, aged 17, she became the youngest ever number-one-ranked professional golfer. Later that year, at the age of 18, she became the youngest woman to win one of the five major championships. She won a second major in April 2016 and later that year won a silver medal at the Rio Olympics, becoming New Zealand’s youngest-ever individual female Olympic medallist. In mid-2017, having just turned 20, Lydia Ko had been the world`s top-ranked woman golfer for a total of 104 weeks.

Using this item

New Zealand Herald
Reference: 020611NZHBMGOLF12.JPG
Photograph by Babiche Martens

Permission of the New Zealand Herald must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page:

Garry Ahern, 'Golf - New Zealand golf in the early 21st century', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/39283/lydia-ko-and-cecilia-cho-2011 (accessed 28 March 2024)

Story by Garry Ahern, published 5 Sep 2013, updated 1 Sep 2016