There's really only one comparison here. Through 59 LPGA Tour events, Lydia Ko has nine wins and one major championship. Through his first 59 PGA Tour events, Tiger Woods had seven wins and one major.
Oh, and Woods was 21 at the time. Ko is a mere 18 years old.
Ko's ninth win (and first major) came at the Evian Championship over the weekend where she defeated Lexi Thompson by six with a final-round 63. In doing so, Ko became the youngest major winner in LPGA history by six months.
"Winning at any age is amazing at a major. All players want to peak at the their best at a major. To say that I'm the youngest in history for now is so cool. The big thing for me is that I won't be asked that (major) question again," said Ko afterwards. The real question we need to be asking is, "how high can this 18-year-old fly?"
Ko cleaned up her win in style on Sunday by making birdie at the final two holes, the second of which was a bomb
Ko had come close to a major before with four top-10 finishes in her last 10 major outings, but finally wrested free that most important of trophies on Sunday. She did it in historic fashion, too. Her 63 was the best final round score for a major winner in LPGA history.
It's a strange thing for an 18-year-old to have a sort of weight on her shoulders of never having won a major championship, but such is the price of immense stardom.
Ko is now the youngest LPGA winner, LPGA major winner and No. 1 golfer in the world (for both men and women). She's a tour de force who's as likeable as she is cutthroat on the course.
I've written about the Ko-Tiger comparison before, and it's not going away any time soon. In fact, it's impossible to ignore.
"It's pretty awesome, especially when I get linked up with people like Annika or Tiger Woods. I've always seen them in magazines, on TV ..." said Ko earlier this season.
Sorenstam is the reasonable comparison for the star-crossed phenom. Tiger, however, is the more fun one to think about. I'm not sure Ko can do for women's golf what Woods did for it on the men's side, but it's not for lack of performance.
Tiger himself was asked about Ko three years ago.
"I had heard of her before a couple years ago, and it was hard to believe that a 13-year-old could be that good," said Woods. "But she was, and now she's fully matured at 15 and understands how to play now. It's cool to see these kids with that much talent and what they can do now at such a young age."
He was asked if he was like that at age 15.
"I wasn't like that at 15, no."
He wasn't like that at 18 either.
