4:41 PM ET
Associated Press
NAPLES, Fla. -- Lydia Ko ne'er won much successful 1 time than connected Sunday successful the CME Group Tour Championship, wherever she claimed the richest prize successful women's play astatine $2 cardinal with a triumph that allowed her to triumph LPGA subordinate of the year.
Ko outlasted Leona Maguire of Ireland successful the last round, seizing power with a 7-foot birdie putt connected the 16th spread and closing with 2-under 70 for a two-shot victory.
Unflappable successful a beardown but occasional wind, Ko wiped distant tears erstwhile she tapped successful for par connected the last astatine Tiburon Golf Club.
"There was a batch of things connected the enactment today," Ko said. "I truly wanted to play the champion play I can. I knew it would beryllium a pugnacious battle, particularly with however pugnacious the conditions were."
The $2 cardinal prize took her play net to conscionable implicit $4.3 million, leaving her $591 abbreviated of the Lorena Ochoa's grounds for single-season net acceptable successful 2007. Ko clinched the points-based grant for LPGA subordinate of the twelvemonth for the 2nd time, and she won the Vare Trophy for the 2nd consecutive twelvemonth for having the lowest scoring average.
Player of the twelvemonth and the Vare Trophy are each worthy 1 point, on with the victory, giving her 25 points toward the 27 points needed for the LPGA Hall of Fame.
The 25-year-old Kiwi, tied with Maguire astatine the commencement of the last round, took her archetypal pb with a birdie connected the par-3 eighth hole. Ko inactive led by 1 changeable erstwhile she deed her tee changeable conscionable abbreviated of the emblem connected the par-3 16th and made the 7-foot birdie putt.
Ko two-putted from 25 feet for birdie connected the par-5 17th to support her pb astatine 2 shots going to the last hole, and she played it harmless from there.
Ko finished astatine 17-under 271 and won the LPGA Tour finale for the 2nd time. Her archetypal rubric successful the CME Group Tour Championship was successful 2014 erstwhile she was 17 and already becoming a ascendant fig successful women's golf.
Ko is connected the verge of the LPGA Hall of Fame astatine property 25, a testament to however bully she has been for truthful long.
"I'm gladsome the photograph I won successful 2014 with my glasses tin beryllium updated," Ko said.
She ends the twelvemonth with 3 victories -- her archetypal multiple-win play since 2016 -- and had 9 different finishes successful the apical five.
Maguire's hopes began to slice erstwhile she deed a fairway metallic truthful bladed connected the par-5 14th that it didn't transverse the hazard. She took a punishment drop, inactive couldn't get to the greenish into the beardown upwind and had to get up-and-down with a wedge to salvage bogey.
Ko, however, deed her 2nd changeable disconnected the broadside of a elevation and into the hazard, and she besides made bogey to support the pb astatine 1 shot.
Maguire changeable 72 to decorativeness second. That was worthy $550,000 from the $7 cardinal purse. Anna Nordqvist had a 67 to decorativeness third.
Ko heads into the offseason with plans to get married. "This is my past tourney arsenic a azygous lady,'" she said with a laughter astatine the trophy presentation.
She present has 19 vocation victories -- the archetypal 1 was 10 years agone successful Canada erstwhile she was a 15-year-old amateur, making her the youngest to triumph an LPGA Tour event.
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