You Ko, Girl!

I love Lydia Ko!  There, I said it out loud.  I readily acknowledge that it's at best problematic, at worst actionable, for a man of my years to feel this way about a 16-year old girl.  But there you have it...

Lydia, the 70's called and they want their glasses back.

Why do I love her?  Let me count the ways...  I love that at age 16 she's able to compete with the greatest women players in the world.  I love the big round glasses, completely devoid of fashion sense.  But mostly I love (and, I might add, envy) her preternatural calm.

So, what made me share my darkest secrets?  While watching Riviera yesterday afternoon I plowed through the accumulated golf rags, including Guy Yocom's endearing interview with Ko in the March Golf Digest.  The interview can be found here, and includes Lydia's golf ball angel photo.  She comes across as mature beyond her years (but by decades), but without the slightest affectation.  But my favorite moments

Lydia showing off two of her most important weapons, her driver and her smile.

are when she qualifies her answers with the caveat, "But I'm only 16."

She touches on a wide range of subjects, and does occasionally seem like a normal 16 year old when speaking of heroes such as Phil Mickelson and Bob Charles, not to mention Se Ri Pak.  But listening to her analyze her home life and challenges of being a world-class athlete at such a tender age, you'd think these were the wistful reflections of a grizzled vet.

My second Lydia moment was last evening, watching the replay of the third round of the Australian Women's Open.  Lydia was going absolutely nowhere, when she happened to jar her second shot on the Par 4 seventeenth.  Now this shot took her from 4 back to within 2, and basically put her back in the hunt.  She did give her caddy a perfunctory high-five (though she kept him waiting such that he had time to switch to his right hand), an embarrassed shrug and, well, that's about all.  She's definitely a flatliner,

Ko's hole-out (and over-the-top celebration) can be seen at about the 1:35 mark of this highlight package:

As long as we're killing time on a holiday weekend, it was at this event last year that we saw the invasion of non-paying spectators:

And lastly, here's another guy's Ode to Lydia:

Though it's quite possible that he's singing about a different Lydia.