Lydia Ko battles burnout; Paula Creamer remains adamant about a Women’s Masters at Augusta

Lydia Ko’s coach, David Leadbetter, is so concerned that his young student may burn out that he has asked Gary Player to counsel the world No. 1 on how to balance golf with life.

After a T51 outcome in the season’s first major — her first finish outside the top 10 in 10 LPGA starts dating back to last season -- Ko took two weeks off before heading to San Francisco, where she hopes to defend her Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic title. Leadbetter told stuff.co.nz that fatigue caused Ko to card her worst finish in 13 majors, and that led him to ask Player to advise the soon-to-be 18-year-old on how to get the most out of her down time.

“Player has his horses, Jack Nicklaus had fishing and golf course design, and Annika [Sorenstam] had things going on away from the golf course,” said Leadbetter. “[Player’s] astounded at the talent level. He wants to see her, play with her and work with her to hopefully pass on some of his experience. He knows how to get it done over a long, long time.”

This week’s tourney is particularly special for Ko, who will no longer be a 17-year-old phenom come Friday, because it’s the first that she won after turning professional. She inked her wrist with a tattoo of the date to commemorate the event.

All the talk about records -- she tied Sorenstam’s all-time streak of consecutive rounds under par at 29 — compounded the mental and physical lethargy that showed up on her scorecard, Leadbetter said.

While the time away from the course should help reinvigorate Ko, repeating as champion will not be a cakewalk. Indeed, a talent-heavy field has many of the competitors thinking major.

“It’s not a major, but it feels like a major,” Ko said on Tuesday. “The top players are here.”

Paula Creamer concurred.

“It has a major feel,” Creamer said. “There are grandstands everywhere.”

Creamer also had another theoretical major on her mind. The 2010 U.S. Women’s Open winner is well aware that the nascent movement she launched to get Augusta National to host a “Women’s Masters” has run into a roadblock in the person of club chair Billy Payne, but she’s not giving up.

Two days after Jordan Spieth won the Masters, Creamer tweeted that she hoped to compete in a Women’s Masters at Augusta. Several of her colleagues backed her up.

Tuesday at Lake Merced Golf Club, Creamer remained firm in her resolve to push the envelope.

”He did [shut the door on such a plan],” Creamer acknowledged. “But there is no reason why you can’t revisit things and you can’t look at it. I think somebody’s got to speak up and say something. I’ve never been afraid to do that, so there is no reason why I can’t voice my opinion on it ... It’s an idea.

“I don’t think that people should be ashamed to talk about it,” Creamer added. “I would like to know truthfully why we wouldn’t be able to have a tournament there. Women’s golf definitely deserves something like that. I think it would be a great place to host that.”

Creamer also dismissed the notion that staging two tournaments a year on the iconic track was impossible, and she pointed to last year’s men’s and women’s U.S. Opens at Pinehurst in successive weeks.

“When they’ve only got one tournament a year there, I think the scheduling issue is kind of strange to me. There are a lot of weeks,” she said. “I understand that a lot goes into it, that one week and planning. The golf course is shut down. But I think it can handle two weeks at a time, whether it’s a week apart or back-to-back.

“Last year proved that you can have two major tournaments back-to-back and see the same great golf,” said Creamer.