Olympic champion and Girls’s British Open winner Lydia Ko says current success hasn’t modified her thoughts about retiring from skilled golf earlier than she turns 30.
The 27-year-old Ko instructed Radio New Zealand that her victories in Paris and at St. Andrews wouldn’t affect her long-held plan exit on high and pursue different pursuits.
“I do know for a truth I’m in all probability by no means enjoying previous 30,” the New Zealander mentioned. “What has occurred in the previous few weeks doesn’t change my timeline. … I need to depart the sport whereas I’m nonetheless enjoying properly.”
Nonetheless, the South Korea-born Kiwi mentioned she would seek the advice of household earlier than reaching any closing determination.
Lately married, Ko mentioned golf is now not the one factor in her life. She additionally famous that she’s a “canine mother.”
READ | New Zealand’s Ko wins gold, turns into most embellished golfer in Olympics
“To know that golf doesn’t full me,” she mentioned, “golf, it’s simply a part of me, however that’s not me as an entire.”
In January 2012, aged 14, Ko turned at the moment the youngest participant male or feminine to win knowledgeable match when she gained the ladies’s New South Wales Open in Australia.
Final 12 months was one in every of her hardest in skilled golf — she didn’t win any LPGA tournaments and no majors, although she gained the profitable Saudi Girls Worldwide and the Grant Thornton Invitational blended groups match with Australian Jason Day.
Her Olympic success after beforehand profitable silver and bronze medals marked the tip of a tough interval, which she had largely endured in silence.
“I’m undoubtedly the kind the place I sort of sit on my emotions and all that and never all the time tremendous vocal about … what I’m going by means of,” Ko mentioned. “However my household has all the time been there for me, and particularly my sister.”