Lydia Ko adds Women's Open to Olympic gold with victory at St Andrews

Lydia Ko completed a fairy-tale fortnight by adding the AIG Women's Open title at St Andrews to her Olympic gold medal from Paris.

The New Zealander started the final round in a share of fourth but made three birdies over a flawless first 14 holes to challenge for the title, which boiled down to a thrilling finale between Ko, Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu, tied at the top of the leaderboard on six under par.

Ko took the clubhouse lead with a brilliant birdie on the 18th, but defending champion Vu was still on her heels right to the end.

Vu needed a birdie on 18 to force a playoff, but ran up a bogey five to secure victory for Ko.

FINAL LEADERBOARD

A third major title caps off a fantastic couple of weeks for Ko after she took Olympic gold earlier this month.

Vu’s dropped shot at the last saw her finish on five under and in a tie for second with Jiyai Shin, Ruoning Yin and Korda.

Victory slipped away for world number one Korda after she hit the ball into the Road Hole bunker on the 17th, which she subsequently bogeyed.

Leona Maguire, meanwhile, slumped to a final-round 76 to finish on tied-37th on four over par.

Maguire, whose best finish at the Women's Open was tied-fourth at Muirfield in 2022, failed to register a birdie on a difficult day for scoring, dropping three strokes down the closing stretch, including at the notorious Road Hole.

A birdie on 18 sees Lydia Ko set the clubhouse lead on -7 with a final round of 69. pic.twitter.com/N5TjPA59ei

Speaking at the trophy presentation, Ko - who had recorded 11 top-10 finishes at majors since her last win at the Chevron Championship eight years ago - said: "It's pretty surreal. Winning the gold medal in Paris a couple of weeks ago, it was almost too good to be true.

"Obviously heading into