Fourteen-year-old Lydia Ko has become the youngest person — male or female — ever to win a professional golf tournament.
The teen won the New South Wales Open golf tournament on Jan. 29.
Ko was born in South Korea but moved with her family to New Zealand in 2003. She is the world’s top amateur golfer.
Ko won the tournament by four strokes. That means that the person who came in second took four more shots than Ko did, to complete 18 holes of golf. (In golf, unlike most sports, the winner is the person with the lowest score.)
Her final score was three under par. In golf, par is the number of shots needed to complete a hole. In this case, “par” for the entire course was 69. Ko completed the course in just 66 shots.
Last year, Ko nearly won the same tournament. But she missed a putt on the last hole, so she didn’t win.
“It’s a pretty amazing feeling. I don’t know what to say,” Ko said. “All I know is I played really consistent all week and I am really happy to be part of history.”*
Ko is a grade 11 student in Auckland, NZ. She trains for her sport about 35 hours a week. Ko plans to play in 30 amateur and professional tournaments this year.
*This quote is from Lydia Ko’s website.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
What character traits do you think Lydia has that help her to succeed in golf?
Reading Prompt: Reading Unfamiliar Words
Unless you are a golfer, you probably discovered some new words as you were reading the article. What words were unfamiliar? How did you predict and solve the meaning of these words?
Primary, Junior and Intermediate
Predict the meaning of and rapidly solve unfamiliar words using different types of cues, including: semantic, syntactic and graphophonic (OME, Reading: 3.2).
Grammar Feature: Verbs
Verbs are action words, such as run, blinking, watch and thinking.
Find and list all of the verbs in this article. Then think of additional verbs that relate to golf and/or sports in general.
