Lydia Ko On A Rampage: She’s Fired Everyone!!

Lydia Ko has everything going for her.

She’s been the No. 1 player in women’s golf since February 2, 2015.

She has 14 LPGA Tour wins, two of them majors.

She’s been Rookie Of The Year, Player Of The Year and the LPGA’s Leading Money Winner, all by the tender age of 19, mind you.

But forget that old adage about if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Ko is changing everything.

She fired her long-time caddie, Jason Hamilton in October.

She’s getting rid of her old equipment company — Callaway — and putting those expensive clubs made by Parsons Extreme Golf in her bag.

This week she made the biggest change of all.  She’s canned her instructor, David Leadbetter.

“Lord Lead” as he is known in golf circles, helped build that reliable swing of hers, the one that won her all those tournaments and all the cash that went with them.

Maybe it’s the fact that Ko had a mini-slump down the stretch this past season, allowing Ariya Jutanugarn to swipe the Player Of The Year honors from Ko.  Jutanugarn is a phenom herself.  She has the length that Ko doesn’t and maybe that’s one of the problems.

Leadbetter didn’t mind talking about the situation at all.  In fact, he believes that Ko’s father — Gil Hong Ko — is the driving force behind all of these radical moves.

“Lydia’s a great person and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time together,” Leadbetter said for the record.  “We did a great job together, just look at the record.  We can hold our heads up high.”

No kidding, look at the record.  Pretty impressive, very impressive, mightily impressive.

“My parting words to Lydia were that I think she needs to take control of her life and her golf game,” said Leadbetter, pulling no punches in the belief that mom and pop Ko are pulling all the strings in these decisions.  “She’s the No. 1 player in the world. She’s not 15 anymore.  She’s nearly 20.  Her parents have done a great job bringing her up and getting her to a certain level but she is old enough now to where she should be making her own decisions.”

The start of all these changes by Ko came in wake of the last part of the season.  She didn’t win anything after July and perhaps Leadbetter saw the writing on the wall when he noticed her swing was beginning to have some changes in it, changes that he did not oversee or recommend.

“Her swing certainly got looser,” Leadbetter observed.  “It looked like she was lifting the club too much and as the season went on, that grew worse.”

Leadbetter also took a cue from Ko’s fitness trainers.  “Her trainers will tell you fitness was an issue,” Leadbetter continued. “And I think that was a huge factor.  So, all of a sudden, you’re not hitting the ball as well and you lose some confidence and you have a tough run of form.”

Leadbetter also say Papa Ko spending more and more time in his practice sessions.  “It’s been difficult the last few months when she’s been hearing more than one voice,” Leadbetter pointed out.

At the end of the day, Leadbetter sort of shrugged it all off.

“These things happen in the world of coaching,” he added.

Happens in the world of golf, too.