For nearly seven months, Lydia Ko has chased that final point. 

Not to say that she has stressed; in Ko’s words, the previous year was more mentally taxing in that regard, and she hasn’t contended enough this year to even be thinking about the last notch in her Hall of Fame belt. Stuck on 26 points since capturing the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in January, Ko had posted just a pair of top-5s since, including a heartbreaking playoff loss to Nelly Korda the week after winning at Lake Nona.

Still in pursuit, the 27-year-old Kiwi arrived in Paris, where again, a win – and accompanying gold medal – would signal Ko’s 27th point and an automatic induction into the LPGA Hall of Fame.

“It would be a hell of a way to do it,” Ko said ahead of her third Olympics.

Days later, the chase is finally over – and in golden fashion.

Ko, already the only golfer, man or woman, to have won two Olympic medals, became the first to the Olympic trilogy as well – silver in Rio in 2016, bronze in Tokyo three years ago, and now gold in Paris. Ko’s up-and-down, 1-under 71 Saturday at Le Golf National was good enough for a two-shot victory over Germany’s Esther Henseleit.

Ko has piled up the youngest-to accomplishments – youngest to win on the LPGA, youngest to win a women’s major, youngest to reach world No. 1. As New Zealand’s first female Hall of Famer, Ko can officially add youngest to enter the LPGA’s Hall under the current criteria.

“I mean, Cinderella's glass slippers are see-through, and my podium shoes are also see-through; I guess that's something that we have going for us,” Ko said on Saturday evening. “I feel like I'm part of this [fairy]tale.”

Ko said she deleted her social-media apps this week, flattered that so many people were talking about her enormous opportunity in Paris but also not wanting it to add to the already enormous pressure.

“Of course, I want to do that, complete it, too,” Ko was thinking, “but it's much easier said than done.”

It had been less than a week since Spain’s Jon Rahm built a four-shot lead with seven holes to play in the Olympic men’s competition, only to implode so much as to cost himself a spot on the podium altogether. Rahm, however, didn’t have the pressure of winning a medal and a Hall of Fame berth – oh, and Ko’s group was on the clock from the fifth hole on. With three players in Saturday’s final two threesomes shooting 40 or worse on the front nine, Ko, in her third Olympic final grouping, was the only player in those two groups to card better than 38. Her opening 34, highlighted by a confidence-boosting birdie from 45 feet at the par-4 seventh, saw her five shots clear of the field, at 11 under, as she made the turn.

Yet, at the same time, Henseleit was busy orchestrating a spirited charge into medal contention. She birdied each of her final two holes to post a final-round 66 and get in the clubhouse in solo second at 8 under. Ko’s double bogey at the difficult par-4 13th, where her approach from 135 yards came up 10 yards short and splashed into the water, knocked her back to 9 under, just a shot clear of Henseleit.

“When I doubled the 13th, [Rahm] did creep into my head,” Ko said, “but I knew that I had been playing really solid … and just needed to trust what I was doing.”

That would be Ko’s only blemish on the back side, as she continued to swat away nerves and gutted out par after par. She then birdied the par-5 finishing hole, where she calmly laid up and then wedged to 5 feet to leave no closing drama.

“If there's one person who I would want to finish in front of me, it's probably Lydia,” said Henseleit, Europe’s first female Olympic medalist. “There are some players that you know they are not going to mess up coming down the last two, and she is definitely one of them. I was just kind of happy sitting there enjoying my silver medal.”

Added Ko: “I don’t want to relive this moment in ways, because I was really nervous out there.”

Ko’s playing competitors, 54-hole co-leader Morgane Metraux of Switzerland and American Rose Zhang, combined to shoot 10 over. Metraux struggled with dizziness and both she and Zhang finished off the podium, which was instead rounded out by bronze medalist Xiyu Lin of China. Lin birdied three of her last four holes to finish at 7 under, a shot clear of four players.

Eight years ago, when Ko took silver in Rio, she found herself fighting back tears while standing next to a stoic Inbee Park, who had earned the playing of South Korea’s national anthem by winning golf’s first gold in 106 years.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can't cry if Inbee is not crying and she's the gold medalist,’” Ko recalled. “… I think internally, I was a bit of an emotional mess.”

On Saturday, she allowed the emotions to quickly show. Before Ko even pulled her ball out of the hole for the final time, her eyes were watery. She wiped the tears away as she walked off the green, though she saved plenty for the medal ceremony, where they streamed down her cheeks and off her chin.

“It's a feeling that you can’t really repeat unless you are in that position again,” Ko said. “I know that it's probably never coming again, so what a way to kind of…”

Her voice trailed off.

When Ko revealed that she watched U.S. gymnast Simone Biles’ documentary on Thursday night and then wrote down a few inspirational quotes from that in her yardage book, including, “I get to write my own ending,” it left many to wonder if Ko, who has spoken publicly in the past about not wanting to compete past age 30, was anticipating a gold medal walk-off. Could this be it? 

But following her victory, Ko clarified that she was not done yet; she’s won just two majors, a Chevron and an Evian, and has the AIG Women’s Open, one of the three that have eluded her, in two weeks at St. Andrews.

“I’m going to enjoy this week up until tomorrow, and then Monday I’ll be getting adjusted to the colder weather in Scotland,” said Ko, who also plans to compete in next week’s Women’s Scottish Open. “This is definitely a highlight and I want to embrace it, but at the same time, I know that I still have things that I want to improve on as a golfer.”

Besides, Ko may soon have a new trophy room to fill. Since the pandemic, Ko has shared her current trophy space with a hitting net and some workout equipment. It’s getting a little musty, Ko admits, and it doesn’t even contain her previous two Olympic medals – the silver is with her sister, who took the medal from Japan to South Korea to show their family after the death of Ko’s grandmother, while the bronze is in Ko’s dad’s closet along with loads of other memorabilia.

“I'm definitely taking all of them back, and I'm going to find a way to kind of present all three,” Ko said.

She’ll probably even need to buy a new house, she acknowledges.

There’s still more to chase, more to be written.