Kai made a break for it ahead of the pro-am event at the Tiburon Golf Club this week, eventually turning up following a dip in the water by the 18th hole.
Ko and her husband Jun almost didn’t adopt Kai before turning back to the breeder on the way to the airport.
“My husband and I had been Instagram eye shopping, looking at different breeders for months. I think for him, my husband, he said, sometimes the house feels lonely, because even for me when I’m at a house alone it’s different with one person to two person and even when the whole family is there,” Ko said yesterday.
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“For a long time I pushed it off and said, hey, I don’t think the time is right. Maybe we should do with when I’m a little bit more stable so that we have at least one kind of fulltime stability I guess routine person.
“But we met Kai in New York and I knew he was the only Shiba left in the litter, at first he hated us because he tried to keep jumping the pen and like go away.
“But after a while I think he got familiar to us and who we were and he started like playing with my phone charm like as if it was a teething toy.
“I think I just got super like connected to him and I remember – but we decided to not adopt him right away. I remember like the rental car return ride I started crying as I got to the airport because I was like, wow, like I’m never going to be able to like see him again.
“In my head, I was already calling him Kai. I think his real name was like George or something. He doesn’t look like a George anyway.
“But I like started crying in the car as we got to the Newark Airport. I’m never going to see him again. And then my husband was driving and he was like, oh, boy. He was like, hey, you really, really think it’s the right decision, we should adopt him.
“A little later we decided to adopt him. He’s been awesome. You know, questionable at times. But this is the first time I’ve had like my own dog, and I have a lot of learning experiences through him, patience.
“And I was like, wow way, if it’s this difficult with a dog I wonder what it would be like when you actually have a human baby. He is much fun and keeps us really active.”
“It’s just been great to have another goofy ball of energy and sometimes I can’t keep up with his running pace as he runs away from me. It’s been a great step for us and I feel like our family just got bigger.
“My family and my in-laws all love him, so it’s really cool that he’s part of the Ko-Chung family.”
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Ko said Kai has helped her during the rare low moments when she comes off the course, citing the Canadian Open when she finished a round with a bogey.
“I saw him and I was like, you know what? There is so much more to life than what I just shot and there is always tomorrow. That week was the first time in a long time I traveled by myself, too, so it was great to have company.”
Ko heads into the CME Group Tour Championship sitting third in the season standings, 1,621 points behind clear leader Nelly Korda. Korda has 4,235 points with seven wins under her belt in 2024 including victory last week.
However, Ko has previously won the CME Group Tour Championship in 2014 and 2022 which has a winner’s cheque of $6.8m ($US4m).
