Life is so good for Lydia Ko right now that she sometimes wonders if it’s real. The Kiwi, fresh off a honeymoon that included eight rounds of golf and an ace, won her first start of the season at the Aramco Saudi Ladies International.

Ko won $750,000 for her efforts, which follows a record-setting $2 million first-place prize at last year’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. While she didn’t earn a coveted LPGA Hall of Fame point for this week’s victory – a Ladies European Tour-Sanctioned event – Ko marches into next week’s event in Thailand in a terrific frame of mind. She needs two more points to qualify for the LPGA Hall. A regular-season LPGA tournament is worth one point and majors are worth two.

“I think I’ve just been very grateful,” she said. “A lot of great things happening, especially in the last few months again and again.”

Bryan Angus (edit)