New Zealand golfer Lydia Ko has pledged to donate all her prizemoney from this week’s LPGA tournament to the relief effort in quake-hit Nepal.
World No.1 Ko told journalists ahead of the North Texas Shootout that she wanted to help victims of the deadly earthquake and aftershocks that have struck the country over the last week. The death toll has risen above 5000 and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.
The 18-year-old said the disaster had impacted on her.
“We had a big one in New Zealand, too, a couple years ago (in Christchurch), and it affected a lot of people,” she said.
“Natural disasters you can’t do much about. Sometimes it’s hard to be prepared for it, so I thought, those people there, nice people and very innocent, I wanted to give this tournament’s earnings and donate it to them.”
The total purse this week is $A1.62 million, with the winner to receive $A243,400.
Ko, who claimed her seventh professional title at last week’s Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic, has won $A1.13 million on the LPGA Tour this year.