For nearly half a decade, Lydia Ko and Inbee Park traded the world No. 1 ranking. Along the way, they pushed each other on final-day leaderboards to build one of women’s golf’s most compelling rivalries. What Ko didn’t know, however, was that Park had been quietly learning from her the entire time.

“I always try to learn a lot from you, and I actually did,” Park told Ko directly, adding that despite Ko being younger and less experienced at the time, her playing style was “mature” and that Ko’s composure, putting, and calm demeanor made her someone Park genuinely looked up to as a competitor.

“That’s really cool. That’s honestly really cool for me,” Ko responded at this year’s HSBC Women’s World Championship.

For that admission to come from Park specifically gives it actual weight. When Ko turned professional at just 16 in 2013, Park was already an established major champion. From 2014 to 2016, both players were trading the world number one ranking back and forth, and the 2015 LPGA season showed exactly how closely matched they were: both won five tournaments each and dominated the tour’s biggest storylines that year.

Inbee Park entered the LPGA Hall of Fame at just 27, holds seven major titles, and is an Olympic gold medalist. Her career-best strokes gained in putting reached +1.41, and analysts throughout her 2013–2015 run of major dominance repeatedly credited her putting and composure as the defining strengths of her game.

The 37-year-old’s comment about stylistic similarity wasn’t flattery. Analysts consistently grouped both players because neither relied on distance. Their scoring advantages came from approach precision and putting consistency.

Meanwhile, Lydia Ko averaged 28.65 putts per round at her peak, ranking third on the LPGA Tour, and at the 2022 CME Group Tour Championship, she ranked first in putts per green in regulation at 1.725 and second in putting average at 28.68.

Their head-to-head record reinforces all of this.

At the 2016 Kia Classic, Ko shot 19-under and birdied her final three holes to hold off Park for the title, with Ko herself noting she had seen Park making a lot of birdies down the stretch. That finishing style, separating late through the putter, is exactly what Park was describing when she credited Ko’s game.

Well, the 3x major winner’s recent form adds further context to how far she has come since those early rivalry years. She won the AIG Women’s Open in 2024, claimed the Kroger Queen City Championship, and secured Olympic gold, which completed her LPGA Hall of Fame eligibility. Ko’s victories continued to follow the same pattern Park described: closing runs built on putting rather than power.

The 27-year-old finishing T27 at the 2026 HSBC Women’s World Championship may not be a headline result. But Inbee Park openly telling a fellow all-time great that she learned from watching her—while Lydia Ko visibly didn’t know how to process it—is the kind of moment that doesn’t show up in the stats.

In the same interview, Inbee Park not only complimented Lydia Ko’s game but also discussed her life after golf.

Inbee Park on life with her two daughters

Park’s life looks very different from her LPGA prime. In a 2026 HSBC Women’s World Championship interview, she admitted the spotlight has moved:

“Now, I’m not in the center of the spotlight; my kids are.”

The shift happened quickly. Park played her last LPGA Tour event in August 2022, nearly eight months before her first daughter, Inseo, was born in April 2023. Her second daughter, Yeonseo, arrived in October 2024, and she has barely left either of them since.

This trip to Singapore marked the first time Park had been away from her daughters for five days straight since becoming a mother in 2023. She confessed she had never left them that long, making this her first real break from motherhood in nearly three years.

Park was invited to the 2026 HSBC Women’s World Championship as a special guest, one of three women to have won the title twice. She came to guide the next generation, and even as she did so, the conversation kept returning to her daughters.