RANCHO MIRAGE – Jin Young Ko faked a smile and jumped into the water beside the 18th green at the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club. The smile she wore, hid the fear she felt inside. She wasn’t nervous in trying to win her first major in 2019, but she was scared about making the winner’s leap, because she didn’t know how to swim.
Each year, the winner of the Chevron Championship jumps into Poppie’s Pond, a tradition that began with Amy Alcott in 1983.
And as the tradition has evolved, so has the pond, which was upgraded from its original state as a murky, scum-covered body of water into a glorified swimming pool, complete with a concrete bottom and chlorine.