Stunning Revelation: The Unbelievable Story of How Lydia Ko Met Her Husband Will Leave You Speechless!

Even as a teenager smashing records, Lydia Ko refused to be called a sporting prodigy. At 15, she became the youngest female golfer ever to win a major. At 17, she was crowned number one in the Women’s World Golf Rankings. And the following year, she hit her first hole in one at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

But winning streaks are hard to maintain, and Lydia has had to face the ups and downs of elite sportswomanship head-on. Now 26, having hit the top spot once again, she’s making plans for retirement. But first she’s heading to Paris 2024, with hopes of striking gold.

Lydia Ko was 14 when she won the NSW Open in Sydney by four strokes, becoming the youngest winner ever, male or female, of a professional golf tour event. A year later, she won two more – unprecedented for an amateur. By the time Lydia was 17, she was the youngest ever number one in the Women’s World Golf Rankings (Tiger Woods was 21 before he made number one). When she triumphed in the Evian Championship in France that year, she became the youngest female golfer to win a major. Her fourth-round score of 63 was the lowest ever final-round score. (She broke that record in 2021 with a final-round score of 62 at the ANA Inspiration.)

By the end of 2022, Lydia had quietly racked up wins at Boca Rio in Florida; in Wonju, South Korea; and in the final tour event, the CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Florida, for which she received a record prize of $2 million. Her scoring average for the tour was 68.988 – the second lowest in LPGA history – and her win put her back in the number one spot. She was named Rolex Player of the Year. “I couldn’t have done better,” Lydia tells me, “but it’s hard to maintain.”

By then, Lydia had met Jun Chung, who was then working for Hyundai in San Francisco, on a blind date in October 2020. Two years later she proposed to Chung, inscribing the words “Will you marry me?” on golf balls (the last one had room for him to circle “Yes” or “No”). The wedding was held at Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul on 30 December 2022. Her lacy long-sleeved dress was rented. After the reception, a friend served doughnuts from his shop. Danielle Kang, a fellow golf pro, gave them a photo booth where the two spent most of the night. Lydia’s memories are a blur, she says.

Until she married, Lydia lived with her parents in Florida. “You take it for granted,” she says. “Simple things like laundry, not having to make your own kimchi stew – they’re time-consuming!” Lydia and Chung now live between San Francisco and Orlando. Chung loves the sport at least as much as she does (he has two coaches to her one), and those closest to Lydia have noticed that she is more relaxed.

She has also become more outspoken. At the Palos Verdes Championship in 2022, she stunned Golf Channel commentator Jerry Foltz into stuttering silence when she explained the source of the tightness in her hips and back. “It’s that time of the month,” she said. “I know the ladies watching are probably like, ‘Yeah, I got you.’” Foltz’s only response was a choked “Thanks.” Lydia had to laugh. “I know you’re at a loss for words, Jerry.”

In 2016, at the same Olympics where Lydia won silver, the Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui had told reporters her period had started the night before an event in which her team finished fourth. In 2022, the British sprinter Dina Asher-Smith pulled up with cramp at the European Championships in Munich, citing “girl stuff, issues,” before calling for more research on how a woman’s period affects athletic performance. Sura thinks it was “not a surprise at all” that Lydia spoke out. “We talk about this every month. It’s the same for all female athletes. It’s brutal. And it’s important to understand that women are not weak, it’s just different.”

“When I first came on tour, my physiotherapist was male,” Lydia says. “My coaches were male. When you’re 16, talking about your period is not comfortable. If your dad goes, ‘She’s on her period,’ you’re like, ‘Why would you say that?’ It did shock Jerry. But it’s just something girls deal with.”

Lydia is doing what she can to change the game in other ways too. In 2015, when she was just 18, she set up the Lydia Ko Scholarship in collaboration with New Zealand Golf to help young golfers to travel to be mentored by her in Florida. “New Zealand people took me under their wing,” she says. “I’m very proud to be a Korean-born Kiwi, and this allows me to give back and grow golf in New Zealand.” She is interested in the future of the sport. “They’re going to be walking in our shoes,” she says, “and as players now, we want the tour to be better for them. The story doesn’t end where our story ends.”

Lydia plans to retire when she is 30. She would like to continue studying, focusing on psychology or perhaps criminology. And she loves to cook. “She is such a foodie person,” Sura says. “We are so fortunate that we travel around the world and can enjoy different culinary experiences. Lydia takes food very seriously!” Lydia and Chung were in northern California recently and had dinner at the French Laundry, the acclaimed Thomas Keller restaurant. “He gave us an absolute treat,” she says. The couple was swept into the kitchen, where Lydia watched as cooks used tweezers to position a single herb on top of a dish. “When they do it, it makes so much sense,” she says.

But before retirement, she has her sights set on gold at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Representing New Zealand in Rio in 2016 was one of her career highlights – she made her first ever hole in one on the par-three eighth in her final round.

However, Lydia has had a rocky start to this season. She missed the cut at the Chevron Championship in April 2023, her first time in a major since 2019. In mid-July she got a seven-stroke penalty for the incorrect use of preferred lies. And in late July, she finished with a six-over 77 at the Evian Championship, tied for 61st place. “Sometimes I have bad days and I’m like, I’m going to fold my clubs and be done today,” she says. “And sometimes I have great days and I’m like, I’m going to keep going.”