ERIN, Wis. — Preparing for a U.S. Women’s Open can be as tough a test as actually playing the USGA setup. For Hall of Famer Lydia Ko, she’s added YouTube golf videos to help get ready for Erin Hills Golf Course this week.
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It might not be the most conventional thing, but YouTube golf is all the rage with Gen Z, and it’s apparently an assist for the third-ranked player in the world, too.
“In all honesty, I watched some YouTube golf before coming here and seeing how they played and just kind of get an idea of what the golf course is like,” Ko said in a news conference on Tuesday. “Obviously, it plays very differently compared to when the men played here [at the U.S. Open] in 2017. You don’t really know until you get here.
“The course is difficult. It’s fun. I think you need a lot of creativity, and as for any U.S. Open, the course tends to change in regards to firmness and the green speed from Monday to Sunday. I’m excited to see how the course changes over the next couple days, but yeah, it’s a great golf course. I think it’s fun. I don’t think it’s, like, for one type of player, which is something that I tend to really prefer because it kind of brings the whole field into it. Hopefully, I can hit some good shots and get a few good lucky bounces and kind of go from there.”
Ko specifically said she watched a 90-minute video from Bryan Bros Golf and Grant Horvat when they played Erin Hills as part of their Major Cut series. Wesley Bryan played in the 2017 U.S. Open, but shot 76-83 and missed the cut in the championship won by Brooks Koepka.
The video—with nearly 1 million views—was posted in September of last year, so it might be a more reliable representation of how the course is playing of late.
“I watched the Bryan Bros, and I think Wesley Bryan was trying to get his revenge from 2017,” Ko said. “… I got into YouTube golf because of my husband, and I won’t be shy to say I watch it on my own now. It’s probably not the preparation that many of the other players did, but it was just a good way for me to kind of see the golf course.”
Ko is searching for her first U.S. Women’s Open victory, which would complete the Career Slam. The LPGA has five majors, but four is still considered a slam, and Ko has won the AIG Women’s Open, Chevron Challenge and the Evian Championship. Her best finish at a U.S. Women’s Open is a tie for third in 2016 at Cordevalle and she had the 54-hole lead.
Ko hopes to conquer the 6,829-yard test to win her first U.S. Women’s Open.
“This would be the [tournament] that I would say I wish I was a U.S. Women’s Open champion,” Ko said. “It may seem like a large pool of people are past champions, but it’s actually quite small, and I would love to be a part of that U.S. Women’s Open club. I think the hardest thing about the U.S. Women’s Open is we don’t go back to the same golf course. It takes a long time to return to the same course …
“There’s a lot of pressure. I don’t know what kind of mindset I’m going to have this week. I’m really excited. I think you have to have a really good short game and an open mind as to how you’re going to play around this course.”
Doing some homework on YouTube might be one of those things.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
