This small change to Lydia Ko’s setup led to big wins in 2024 and a place in the LPGA Hall of Fame

Lydia Ko hit 17 greens and didn’t miss a fairway in an opening 5-under 67 at the 2024 BMW Ladies Championship in her native South Korea. The 27-year-old carded yet another bogey-free round, her 135th dating back to the 2014 season, which is 51 more than anyone else in that span.

Ko’s recent surge in form – she hasn’t finished outside the top 10 in her last six starts worldwide, including three victories – can be credited at least in part to a change, quite literally, off the tee.

Put simply: She now tees the ball lower with her driver.

“I think there was a time when I started not hitting my drivers well,” said Ko, “but then I don’t know if it’s a subconscious thing, but like my 3-wood, I was hitting it really well, and I feel pretty comfortable hitting driver off the deck, anyway, when the lie is decent.

When Ko won the Kroger Queen City Championship last month, she missed only five fairways in the entire tournament, hitting 91 percent.

In her last three starts on the LPGA going into the BMW, she hit 88 percent of her fairways, according to KPMG Performance Insights. In the previous six starts, however, she’d hit only 53 percent of the fairways.

The dip in fairways hit began at the Cognizant Founders Cup in May (61 percent) and extended through the CPKC Women’s Open (48 percent). The low point came at the U.S. Women’s Open when she hit only 35 percent of the fairways.