ST ANDREWS, Scotland — As Lydia Ko walked down the picturesque 17th hole at the Old Course, level at 6-under-par with Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu and Jinyai Shin, the postcard view darkened. The heavens suddenly caved in and, as she arrived to discover only the narrowest of corridors into the infamously tough green, it felt like the New Zealander’s bid to end an eight-year wait for a third major may be about to follow suit.
Left of the fairway, she was confronted by torrential rain and a line into the pin that flirted ominously close to one of golf’s most notorious hazards, the Road Hole bunker.
It has claimed the souls of many challengers — most notably Tommy Nakijima whose four-shot escape saw it re-christened the ‘Sands of Nakajima’ — and given Ko’s many near misses since winning the 2016 Chevron Championship, the sense of jeopardy intensified.
She had vowed to play smart golf Sunday at the Women’s Open and not look at the score she was chasing. But with Ruoning Yin putting ahead of her at 18 to make it a five-way tie, she knew there was no margin for error.
Ko hit a flat 3-wood that bumped its way over the steep front lip of the green to leave herself within 12 feet. She holed out for par, before hitting an exquisite approach shot on the last that presented a…
