“We cried. Making the cut, we cried,” said Danielle Kang, just hours before the beginning of the 2025 Dow Championship. She was remembering moments from 2024 when she and Lydia Ko had barely made it through the cutline in the team event. They had qualified for the weekend rounds, which meant they would get “to play two more days with each other.” That was the goal of the two ‘sisters from another mister,’ as they liked to call themselves. However, fortune didn’t favor the dynamic duo this time around as they crashed out on Friday. And Ko wasn’t happy about it.
She expressed her disappointment on Instagram, sharing a picture of Kang and herself. In the caption, she mentioned how she was “gutted” to not be able to play the weekend and spend more time with her sister. She still showed her love for the American golfer and stated how she is proud of the effort they put in during the tournament. Ko and Kang could only manage to score 1-under par 139 in 18 holes. They missed the cutline by 3 strokes.
This came as a major surprise as in the press conference preceding the 2025 Dow Championship, Ko had warned her rivals like Lexi Thompson & Co. by stating, “There is a lot of trust. It’s not our first rodeo. It’s not like Oh, what’s your favorite color. We don’t have to do all the basic questions. I’m sure there are a lot of partners that played together, but we have done a lot of that, and because we can almost stick to our own schedules and just focus on us and just try and be the most prepared ourselves, I think that’s the best we can do at this point.”
Thompson & Megan Khang‘s ‘Biggie Smalls’ are still in contention for the title. They sit at T9, 4 strokes from the top of the leaderboard after the end of the 4th round. But having the tournament end early for the sisters from another mister might just prove to be a blessing for them. Especially considering the challenges that they might face in a couple of weeks.
What challenges do Lydia Ko and Danielle Kang have to prepare for next? Let’s take at their possible LPGA Tour schedule.
Lydia Ko & Danielle Kang’s next mountainous task
As the 2025 Dow Championship comes close to an end, everyone on the field will eventually shift their focus to the next big event. In a couple of weeks, the LPGA Tour stars will head to Evian Resort Golf Club in France for the 4th major of the season. The 2025 Amundi Evian Championship is next on the women’s golf calendar and will see the return of many top stars for the first time since the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. And considering Lydia Ko & Danielle Kang’s forms in the majors this year, they will need as much time as they can get to prepare for the event.
Ko has not had a single top-10 finish in the three majors she has played in this season. The Chevron Championship saw her finish at T52. Then she got a T26 in the U.S. Women’s Open and at T12 at PGA Frisco. While her form is gradually improving, the New Zealander has still been quite inconsistent all throughout the season. Kang, on the other hand, has only played in 1 major this year, the Women’s PGA Championship. That too didn’t go as well as she had hoped, as she missed the cut for the tournament. She still sits on the reserves list of entries for the event and has an outside chance of making the field.
Either way, both Lydia Ko & Danielle Kang need to start preparing for their visit to France for the European leg of the LPGA Tour. Especially if they want to get a better result than the one they produced in the 2025 Dow Championship.
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