Lydia Ko found herself crying on the medal stand on Saturday at Le Golf National, with the gold medal for women's golf around her neck.
The Kiwi had finally done it -- it being a lot of things. She won the Olympic gold medal in her third try, at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She completed the Olympic medal trio, having won silver in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and bronze in Tokyo in 2021.
And, with the win, she earned the 27th and final point she needed to qualify for the LPGA's points-based Hall of Fame. Ko is the youngest player to qualify for the honor and first since Inbee Park nearly a decade ago.
It was natural, then, for Ko to be emotional in that moment, with her national anthem playing and the New Zealand flag flying highest.
However, it was also natural for Ko to cry because she considers herself an emotional person. In fact, she wanted to cry back in Rio in 2016 when she was runner-up. Ko didn't cry, though, because the first modern women's Olympic golf champion wasn't shedding a tear.
"I was really nervous. But I think the biggest kind of standout moment for me. I was tearing up on the podium and I was like, Oh my gosh, I can't cry if Inbee is not crying and she's the Gold Medalist, and she's listening to her National Anthem," she said Friday.
"I think internally, I was a bit of an emotional mess."
She got it done on Saturday in Paris, checking off several career achievements in one fell swoop and feeling a geniuine sense of relief and joy as that final putt dropped. Ko has enjoyed an incredible career and grown up in the public spotlight, going from a multi-time amateur LPGA Tour winner to a Hall of Famer, just the 35th player ever to accomplish the feat.
