Dame Lydia Ko saved her best golf for when it mattered most, closing with a seven under par 64 to charge into the top 10 at the Amundi Evian Championship in France on Sunday, her first top 10 finish at a major in almost two years.
Ko began the final round well down the field in a share of 16th, but a bogey free card around the Evian Resort Golf Club lifted her all the way to a tie for seventh at 13 under par for the week. Her 64 matched the lowest round of the day and was worth about 242,000 US dollars in prize money. More telling than the cheque was what the number said about her form. The 29 year old has spent much of the past two seasons a step off the pace in the sport’s biggest events, and a closing round like this one is the sort of statement that used to come easily to her. You can see the full account of Ko’s charge at Australian Golf Digest.
The Auckland golfer went into the day with a modest target and beat it. According to reports from Evian, Ko had set herself the goal of a six under round and finished one better, reeling off birdies in a steady run that never looked like stalling. Her husband Jun Chung was on the bag for the week, one of a number of family caddie stints the couple have shared since their marriage, and the two of them walked off the final green with the widest smiles of any pairing on the course.
Ko is one of the most decorated players in the women’s game and the story of her career means a top 10 no longer draws the headlines it once did. She was the youngest world number one in the history of professional golf, she completed the full set of Olympic medals when she won gold in Paris in 2024, and she was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame at the start of last year. For a player of that standing, the challenge in 2026 has been consistency at the majors rather than talent, which is what made the Evian result feel like a small turning point rather than a routine finish.
The title itself went to South Korea’s Haeran Ryu, who birdied the first hole of a playoff to beat Canada’s Brooke Henderson and claim a second straight major in the space of three weeks. Ryu had already won the Women’s PGA Championship at Hazeltine on 29 June, and backing it up at Evian made her the first player to win back to back majors in a single season in this stretch of the tour’s history. The 25 year old had set up the win with an extraordinary third round of 60 on Saturday, the lowest single round ever recorded at a women’s major, which handed her a three shot overnight lead. You can read the LPGA’s report on Ryu’s win.
It was anything but comfortable. Ryu let the three shot cushion slip during a chaotic final day and needed a birdie at the last just to force extra holes, finishing regulation at 19 under par. Henderson had made the day a contest with one of the rounds of the year, a seven under 64 built on three eagles, including a hole in one at the par three eighth. The Canadian had looked out of range at the start of the day and very nearly ran the leader down, but in the playoff she could not match Ryu’s birdie and had to settle for second. More on the drama is covered in ESPN’s coverage of the finish.
Ryu’s five shot winning margin over Ko does not tell the story of how close the top of the leaderboard felt on the back nine, with eagles and birdies flying and the lead changing hands more than once. For neutral viewers it was the kind of Sunday that sells the women’s game, and for New Zealand golf followers the pleasing part was seeing Ko in the mix on the final afternoon of a major again rather than watching from the middle of the pack.
Evian is the fourth of the women’s majors on the calendar and leaves one more still to play this season, the AIG Women’s Open, where Ko has a strong record and will fancy her chances of turning a top 10 into a genuine tilt at a title. She has won two majors in her career, both back in 2015 and 2016 during her teenage run to the top of the game, and closing that gap remains one of the few boxes she has left to tick. A round like the one she produced at Evian is the sort of platform that has been missing.
Ko has also been playing this season without an equipment contract after becoming a free agent earlier in the year, a situation that has drawn plenty of comment given her profile, and a run of finishes like this one does her no harm as she weighs up her options. For now the focus is simply on form, and the closing 64 in France was the clearest sign in months that the best version of Ko is still very much in there.
She has carried New Zealand golf almost single handedly on the world stage for more than a decade, and a strong finish at one of the game’s grand old venues is a reminder that she is not done adding to the story yet. The rest of the season, and the Women’s Open in particular, will show whether Evian was a one off good day or the start of something more.
What did you make of Lydia Ko’s charge up the Evian leaderboard, and do you think she has another major left in her? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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