LPGA star Lydia Ko dishes on modeling for Vogue, including the backward dress
Lydia Ko became such a fan of what it takes to be a fashion model after posing for the cover of Vogue Korea that she starting watching YouTube videos of runway walks. “I’m definitely not going to be walking down the hotel hallway trying to see how my walk is going to be like,” said Ko during a pre-tournament press conference for the HSBC Women’s World Championship. “But it just makes you realize, like, wow, what they do is like an art. It’s really beautiful.”
The LPGA Hall of Famer recently appeared on the cover of Vogue and called it a once-in-lifetime experience. The 27-year-old won gold at the Paris Olympics last year to get into the Hall of Fame and then promptly collected her third career major at the AIG Women’s British Open at St. Andrews two weeks later. As she now chases the career Grand Slam, the Kiwi’s legend only grows. Late last year, Ko was made a dame in the New Year’s honor list in New Zealand. This week she’s one of nine top-10 players in the field in Singapore for the 17th edition of the HSBC.
“Some people are like, ‘Oh, is she the same person?'” Ko said of the Vogue photos. “It was so much fun, and obviously my first experience, really, of being on a fashion magazine outside of golf clothes and my hat, and I think the hat in particular is a signature look for all of us. I think that’s how most people recognize us. “To have hair extensions, hair down, wearing amazing clothes, it was so much fun. I’m honestly not envious of the models that do this quite often. It’s a lot of work and a lot of people to make that cover shoot the way it is.”
Ko recalled looking at one of the outfits and thinking, I’m wearing that? But then later looked in the mirror and thought, “Wow, like this is fashion.” She was, however, particularly fond of a pantsuit they picked out that more suited her style. “Like my cover shoot, I wore the dress backward. Like the back that was open, that’s actually the front,” said Ko. “So when they told me to wear it the other way around, I was like, dang, I really don’t understand fashion. But it came out great and obviously they had that eye to be able to catch the beauty in all that.”
In addition to runway walks, Ko has drawn inspiration from several sports documentaries of late. Last year, when she won the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, she was watching a Netflix documentary on TOC celebrity tennis player Mardy Fish. She watched gymnast Simone Biles’ documentary both before and after the Paris Olympics. Now she’s watching “Court of Gold” on Netflix, which follows men’s basketball teams from USA, France, Serbia and Canada in pursuit of the gold medal in Paris. She got into that after attending the 2025 NBA All-Star Game in San Francisco earlier this month.
“I met the Korean actor today, Song Joong-Ki,” said Ko. “We’re all performers at the end of the day, models, golfers, actors and we’re performing for somebody. I think it’s hard because everybody’s taste is different. “But I realize that we all are very lucky to be able to do what we do, and it’s beautiful in our own ways.”
