Lydia Ko introduced her dog Kai to the golf world days ago – after he broke loose and spent some time in the water at the Tiburon Golf Club. Ko brought the 10-month-old Shiba Inu breed to the press conference ahead of the LPGA’s final event of the season, the CME Group Tour Championship. Ko and her husband adopted Kai in May and the little canine has travelled with her throughout the season and turned into a bit of a good luck charm.
Ko added gold to complete the full set of Olympic medals with victory at Le Golf National in August. Two weeks later she claimed her third major with victory in the Women’s Open at St Andrews.
“It’s been a special year. Adopted this handsome man at the Mizuho in New York, so it’s been awesome. To be able to share these moments with my family and my team has honestly been a fairytale of a season,” Ko said.
Kai made a break for it ahead of the pro-am event at the Tiburon Golf Club this week, eventually turning up following a dip in the water by the 18th hole. Ko and her husband Jun almost didn’t adopt Kai before turning back to the breeder on the way to the airport.
“My husband and I had been Instagram eye-shopping, looking at different breeders for months. I think for him, my husband, he said, sometimes the house feels lonely, because even for me when I’m at a house alone it’s different with one person to two person and even when the whole family is there,” Ko said.
“For a long time I pushed it off and said, hey, I don’t think the time is right. Maybe we should do with when I’m a little bit more stable so that we have at least one kind of fulltime stability, I guess, routine person. “But we met Kai in New York and I knew he was the only Shiba left in the litter, at first he hated us because he tried to keep jumping the pen and like go away.
“But after a while I think he got familiar to us and who we were and he started playing with my phone charm as if it was a teething toy. “I think I just got super connected to him but we decided to not adopt him right away. I remember in the rental car return ride I started crying as I got to the airport because I was, like, wow, I’m never going to be able to see him again.
“In my head, I was already calling him Kai. I think his real name was George or something. He doesn’t look like a George anyway. “But I like started crying in the car as we got to Newark Airport. I’m never going to see him again. And then my husband was driving and he was like, oh, boy. He was like, hey, you really, really think it’s the right decision, we should adopt him.
“A little later we decided to adopt him. He’s been awesome. You know, questionable at times. But this is the first time I’ve had like my own dog, and I have a lot of learning experiences through him … patience. “And I was like, wow way, if it’s this difficult with a dog I wonder what it would be like when you actually have a human baby. He is much fun and keeps us really active.”
“It’s just been great to have another goofy ball of energy and sometimes I can’t keep up with his running pace as he runs away from me. It’s been a great step for us and I feel like our family just got bigger. “My family and my in-laws all love him, so it’s really cool that he’s part of the Ko-Chung family.”
Ko said Kai has helped her during the rare low moments when she comes off the course, citing the Canadian Open when she finished a round with a bogey.
“I saw him and I was like, you know what? There is so much more to life than what I just shot and there is always tomorrow. That week was the first time in a long time I traveled by myself, too, so it was great to have company.”
Ko heads into the CME Group Tour Championship sitting third in the season standings, with Nelly Korda already locking up the Player of the Year title.
However, a winner’s cheque of $US$4 million (NZ$6.8m) is up for grabs this weekend, the second biggest prize pool of the year. Ko is looking to win a third title at the CME Group Tour Championship with victories in 2014 and 2022.
