SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Lydia Ko completed her Olympic medal collection on Saturday with the most valuable of of them all, a gold medal that puts the 27-year-old Kiwi into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
Aditi Ashok shot her best round of the week, a 68, but it was too little, too late. With a total of 2-over 290 (72, 71, 79, 68), Aditi finished T29. Diksha Dagar failed to stem the slide again, and finished T49 after shooting a final day 78. Her final score read 13-over 301 (71, 72, 80, 78).
View this post on Instagram
Ko built a five-shot lead on the back nine at Le Golf National as her closest pursuers all collapsed, and then had to hang on until the very end. Her lead down to one, Ko made a 7-foot birdie putt for a 1-under 71 and a two-shot victory.
Ko won the silver medal in Rio de Janeiro. She won the bronze in Tokyo. The missing one turned out to be more valuable than its weight in gold. The victory pushed her career total to 27 points for the LPGA Hall of Fame, one of the strictest criteria for any shrine.
Esther Henseleit of Germany finished birdie-birdie for a 66 to make Ko work for it. She wound up with the silver. Xiyu Lin of China birdied the final hole for a 69 to win the bronze.
View this post on Instagram
For Nelly Korda, Rose Zhang and Morgane Metraux, it was a day to forget. All of them were in range early. All of them fell back with a double bogey or worse.
This is the latest prize for a remarkable career for Ko, who won her first LPGA title as an amateur when she was 15 and rose to No. 1 in the world for the first time at 17. She began this year with a victory, leaving her one point short of the Hall of Fame.
“It would be a hell of a way to do it,” she said when she arrived at the course Monday.
