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SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Lydia Ko completed her Olympic medal collection Saturday with the most valuable of of them all, a gold medal that puts the 27-year-old New Zealander into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
Ko built a five-shot lead on the back nine at Le Golf National as her closest pursuers all collapsed, then had to hang on until the very end. Her lead down to one, Ko made a 7-foot birdie putt for a 1-under 71 and a two-shot victory.
Ko won the silver medal in Rio de Janeiro. She won the bronze in Tokyo. The missing one turned out to be more valuable than its weight in gold. The victory pushed her career total to 27 points for the LPGA Hall of Fame, one of the strictest criteria for any shrine.
Esther Henseleit of Germany finished birdie-birdie for a 66 to make Ko work for it. She wound up with the silver. Xiyu Lin of China birdied the final hole for a 69 to win the bronze.
For Nelly Korda, Rose Zhang and Morgane Metraux, it was a day to forget. All of them were in range early. All of them fell back with a double bogey or worse.
This is the latest prize of a remarkable career for Ko, who won her first LPGA title as an amateur when she was 15 and rose to No. 1 in the world for the first time at 17. She began this year with a victory, leaving her one point short of the Hall.
“It would be a hell of a way to do it,” she said when she arrived at the course Monday of clinching by winning gold.