GOYANG-SI, South Korea — Lydia Ko said she felt like a Teletubby in her purple ensemble for the new World Team. Week to week on the LPGA, she typically wears a black, white and beige color palette with her Boss partnership.
“I've been looking at my swings on my phone, and it looks like it's not me,” said Ko on her way to the first tee Tuesday at the Hanwha LifePlus International Crown.
Uniform color aside, Ko has waited a long time to be part of a team event on the LPGA. There’s not much the LPGA Hall of Famer hasn’t experienced over the course of her career, but this marks her first appearance at the Crown, which features eight four-player teams from across the globe.
Former LPGA commissioner Mike Whan debuted the event in 2014 to involve players from around the world who weren’t eligible for the Solheim Cup. But because each team consists of four players, it’s impossible for a player like Ko – one of only two New Zealanders on the LPGA – to ever qualify. The same is true for Canada's winningest golfer, Brooke Henderson.
It took more than a decade for the tour to come up with a solution. The inaugural World Team consists of the top-ranked player from each of the following four regions, not from a country already qualified: Europe, Asia and Africa/Oceania.
This week at New Korea Country Club, the seventh-seeded World Team features some of the most popular players on tour: Charley Hull (England), Brooke Henderson (Canada), Wei-Ling Tsu (Tawian) and Ko.
The new World Team includes a number of fan favorites: Lydia Ko, Brooke Henderson, Charley Hull and Wei-Ling Hsu. pic.twitter.com/nuYcN1ygy3
— Beth Ann Nichols (@GolfweekNichols) October 21, 2025
When asked which team might be the biggest threat, Sweden’s Maja Stark singled out the World.
“We're playing a four-ball the first few days, and that's very much about you hitting good shots yourself,” said Stark.
“I think that what they maybe lack in chemistry on the team or just how much you know each other, I think they make up for in individual really good players.”
Last month, while playing in Ohio at the Kroger Queen City Championship, Hull was asked whether she’d talked to any of her Crown teammates yet.
"No, haven't even looked who is on the team, to be fair,” she said. “I'll just rock up that week and play some golf."
While Hull is a stalwart for Team Europe at the Solheim, the last time Ko played in a team event was six years ago at the Orange Life Champions Trophy Inbee Park Invitational, which pitted KLPGA members against South Koreans on the LPGA in a three-day competition. Ko had blast.
It's no wonder that when one of the most decorated players in the modern game watched her friends compete in the Solheim Cup or the Crown each year, she felt left out.
“I think internally I may have criticized the tournaments because I just wanted to play so much,” Ko said earlier this year. “It wasn't about the event, but it was like my own frustration.”
On Thursday, Ko and Hull will partner together in the four-ball format and kick off the competition at 9:15 a.m. local time against Japan's Miyu Yamashita and Rio Takeda.
Ko, 28, moved with her family to New Zealand at age 6 and didn’t go back to South Korea for the next five or six years, mainly because of the school calendar. She played under the New Zealand flag as an amateur and didn’t think about switching back to Korea when she turned professional.
“As much as I play under the New Zealand flag, I still come to Korea and people, you know, a lot of people think of me as their own, so I'm really appreciative of that,” she said. “And honestly, I think it's good that I represent both countries. I think both cultures are a big part of my life, and I think, whether it's New Zealand or Korea, if either one is taken away from me, I don't think I would be me.”
Over the years, Ko said, she has grown to love playing in front of the South Korean fans more and more. In her younger days, she wanted so badly to play well in her native country and the expectations and scrutiny that came along with her early success sometimes made it difficult to enjoy the experience.
“I think I've got into a point where I just appreciate their support, and as much as they want to see good golf, and I want to play good golf, it's not really about that,” said Ko. “They're just out here to support me and all of us. So, yeah, I think I've matured in that sense."
The first professional tournament Ko ever attended as a fan featured a young amateur named Eun-hee Ji and an iconic Seri Pak at her peak in South Korea. There’s a picture her parents took of young Ko, soaking in what would be her future, with Ji and Pak in the background.
Ji, the 2009 U.S. Women’s Open winner, retired last week at age 39, and Ko took part in a celebration party before the LPGA’s fall Asian swing.
“I've been very lucky to kind of play with those kind of players,” she said, “that were literally people I saw in the magazine or in real life outside the ropes.”
In some ways, it’s fitting that Ko plays this week under the World Team flag. Born in South Korea, raised in New Zealand and a longtime resident of the U.S., she’s beloved in all corners of the globe.
It’s only a pity that she wasn’t part of this from the start.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: After feeling left out, Lydia Ko set for International Crown debut
