The Round Table: Lydia Ko caps Hall of Fame career with an Olympic Gold Medal

Each week we ask our panel of writers, PGA members and golf industry experts to weigh in with their views on the hot topics of the day.

Lydia Ko notched the Gold Medal at Le Golf National on Sunday, giving her the trifecta of Olympic medals. The win also qualified her at age 27 for the LPGA Hall of Fame. What can you say about Ko’s win and her remarkable career?

Jim Deeks, Fairways Magazine (@jimdeeks): I can’t say anything other than “Bravo!” Lydia has proven that she’s one of the top women players of all time, starting with winning the Canadian Women’s Open at age 15.  But even more impressive, she qualified to play in the New Zealand Women’s Amateur at age 7!!  I’ve watched Lydia’s progress with interest… from the shy, almost mute little girl with Coke-bottle glasses who won that Canadian Open, to the friendly, mature, happy, and always focused young lady (and wife) that she is today.  I’m a big fan, and her Olympic Gold may just be the first of a few before she’s finished.

Craig Loughry, Golf Ontario (@craigloughry): It’s impressive, I wasn’t sure Ko would be there in the end, she’s a worthy Champion and deserving World Golf Hall of Famer (even at 27).

Michael Schurman, Master Professional / Hall of Fame Member, PGA of Canada: Induction into the LPGA Hall of Fame is one of the most credible recognitions of a player’s career. The points are well-defined as are the other criteria. All you have to do is win the prescribed number of events and meet the other criteria. The PGA Tour would be well advised to adopt a similar system. Their current method is simply an “old Boys” Club with a very low threshold. Lydia has been remarkable!

TJ Rule, Golf Away Tours (@GolfAwayTJ): From the time she won her first LPGA event in Canada as an amateur, it was clear she was going to be a star, and she hasn’t disappointed.  She had a couple of leaner years but to her credit has elevated her game in the last few years to the top of the rankings and has done so with class.  To medal in all three Olympics is an incredible achievement, as is getting to one of the toughest Halls to enter, all by the age of 27.  What more can be said, she’s among the best of all time and I hope she continues to play for years to come.

Hal Quinn, Freelance Writer, Vancouver: It’s the toughest Hall to get into, and so at any age – 27? Wow! – it is amazing. This Hall isn’t at the whim of overweight, non-athlete sportswriters, drug testing lab techs a half-world away, or voters who couldn’t spell persimmon. This one is legit. The only problem is the timing. There’s something about being applauded after retirement, not in the midst of a career. The five-year hiatus seems about right.

Peter Mumford, Fairways Magazine (@FairwaysMag): When you start winning at age 15 and make it to the Hall of Fame by the time you’re 27, what do you do for an encore? It’s been quite a career and noteworthy for Canadian fans as Ko won our Women’s Open three times. Hopefully, she’ll keep playing and winning for many more years. She’s a class act and a great ambassador for women’s golf.

Did the most recent Olympic Golf competitions change your opinion of their importance to the sport and what a medal means to a player’s legacy?

Deeks: No, it reinforced my view of the importance of the event to the culture of golf, and of a medal to the players.  I was disappointed that so many of the male professionals dismissed the Golf competition in Brazil in 2016.  Things improved with Tokyo, but these Games had the best of the best, albeit with a very limited field.  I would think that making their country’s team, and playing for a medal at Riviera in 2028, would be paramount on most players’ minds over the next four years, regardless of which country they represent.

Loughry: I’m still of the same mind with golf in the Olympics, it’s going to matter more later than it does now for both players and the audience/fan ship.

Schurman: No. There are 5 male majors and 5 for the ladies. Given a medal winner represents their country, there is a certain value and it’s refreshing to see the player’s display of emotion and pride. However, it is a very weak field and doesn’t match the strength of the average tour event and that is why the LPGA assigns it one point for gold but no points for silver and bronze.

Rule: In short, yes.  I was luke warm on the tourney the first year, particularly since many of the top players skipped the event.  But clearly it has been elevated to near the top of the list of major tournaments on both the men’s and women’s side of the game.  It’s a great competition and I think players are putting qualifying for the event at the top of their list of goals every four years.

Quinn: No. But a Canadian won gold in male breaking. That’s huge, as it will not be an event in L.A. Golf will be, evidently.

Mumford: I think the players are beginning to understand the vast reach of the Olympics and appreciate that golf is but a small part of it. Winning a medal isn’t the same as winning a major – one is appreciated by an audience of golfers, the other is recognized and applauded around the world. A top player might have 80-100 chances to win a major during a career but perhaps only two to three for an Olympic medal, if he or she can qualify. Moving forward, the golf world will realize how rare and special an Olympic medal is to a player’s legacy.

On the PGA Tour, the regular season is over and the playoffs about to start in Memphis. Only 70 players qualified, and that number will be reduced to 50 for the BMW Championship and 30 for East Lake. Over the years, the Tour has tinkered with the playoff format repeatedly. Have they finally got it right?

Deeks: Yes, I guess they have, but that may not prevent the usual whining and complaining, especially from those who didn’t qualify.  Frankly, I find the whole playoff system too long and drawn out, and I really don’t pay much attention until the East Lake final.  I would much prefer if they had one “semi-final” medal play event, then narrow it down to the top 16 from there and have a match play event as the culmination.  But that risks the final match being between, say, Nick Dunlap and Emiliano Grillo, drawing a television audience of roughly eleven people.  The PGA Tour would never take that risk.

Loughry:  I do think this version is as good as it has ever been. It’s the final stage where they start with a staggered leaderboard that seems strange to me. It just seems and looks odd is all. In the spirit of the Olympics, I look at the heats leading up to the 100M final, everyone starts at the same point (heat and finals), and they don’t start the fastest qualifier at 90M in the 100M Finals.

Schurman: The only awkward part is the seeding of the final 72 holes. I understand the thought that the best player has earned their position through year-long performance combined with the first two play-off events. But there was a greater need for this when the playoffs consisted of four events. A player could earn enough points during the season to enable them to bypass play-off rounds. This is no longer the case. The season points leaders have been amply rewarded in the first two events which allow them to earn a top 30 placement in the final. At that point, the top 30 should either become 36 and play match play or the current top 30 each start at zero and play 72 holes without the handicapping. Play-offs are playoffs! Nobody starts with a lead!

Rule: I think it’s as good as it’s ever been, for a sport that can’t have a traditional playoff format that works for everyone.  I like that they chop the numbers each week and give at least 10 guys a chance at winning going into the final week.  Not sure I have any recommendations on how to improve it, I like it the way it is personally.

Quinn: It was heartening to learn that Scheffler had “earned” an $8M (US) bonus from FedEx for finishing 1st in the run up to the Fed Ex multi-multi-million-dollar Cup. Timely, as it came right after the sting of getting that chump change $37,500 (US) for the gold medal in France. Now let the games for the real obscene money begin. Billy (after about age 8 shouldn’t guys stuck with that name go by William or at least Bill?) Horschel was hilariously ingenuous when he said TV commentators should stop talking about all the millions being handed out in the FedEx Cup. He thinks it’s embarrassing. In a global sense it is, not the mentioning, but the numbers. This ‘stop the Saudis’ fund is beyond embarrassing. It will be interesting, in a non-monetary sense, to watch it go 70-50-30, that seems about right. Just don’t tell the IRS what the numbers are off the scorecard.

Mumford: Golf doesn’t lend itself to playoffs the same way team sports do. I’d abandon them entirely and at the end of the season, give the leader a big cheque and declare him the winner. Apparently, FedEx has already given Scottie Scheffler $8 million, so I’m not sure what the next three events are going to prove. If someone else wins the playoffs, did they have a better year than Scheffler? As for the format, if they must have playoffs, get rid of the handicapped start to the final event. It’s an embarrassment.