2003 CJ 9 Bridges Classic: Hometown Heroine

Se Ri Pak notched her fifth second place finish of the year at the CJ 9 Bridges Championship last week, and her 18th top ten of the year. This in itself is not so amazing; Se Ri is a player who often finds herself in contention, particularly at the end of the season. But what is amazing is that, for the first time, she is looking at a season where she may have more second place finishes than wins. So far she only has three wins, and only one win during her amazing stretch of 11 straight top ten finishes (12 if you count her 10th place finish at the recent SBS Championship on the Korean men's tour).

Se Ri has been known for years as a great closer. The numbers bear her out. She has yet to lose a playoff in her LPGA career (she is 4 - 0, including her epic 20 hole playoff to win the 1998 US Women's Open). She has only twice lost when leading going into the final round, both times at the Giant Eagle Classic to Dorothy Delasin in consecutive years. And usually when she gets within a couple shots of the leaders with a few holes to go, she is money in terms of catching them and taking the trophy.

Se Ri meets the press before the event starts

Se Ri takes a drink while she prepares to
tackle the field

But for some reason, that has not been the case the last few months. Certainly earlier in the season, she was her old self. Her wins at the Safeway Ping and the Chick-Fil-A Charity Championship were vintage Se Ri. In both cases she came back from a deficit with final round 64s. At the Ping, she had to hold off a hard charging Grace Park by, among other things, sinking the clutch shot of her career, a 45 foot par save on the 17th hole. At the Chick-Fil-A, she made one jaw dropping rescue shot after another in a gripping four hole playoff against Shani Waugh.

But ever since the British Women's Open, where Se Ri, tied for the lead going into the final hole, hit her drive into a fairway bunker and bogeyed to give the title to Annika Sorenstam, Se Ri has proven more mortal in her attempts to collect a win. At the Betsy King, she had the lead with just a few holes to go, after mounting a great come from behind effort, but then played very sloppy golf to give it all away. At the Longs Drugs Challenge, she shot a 64 in the second round to take the lead, played a mediocre round and a half after that to lose the lead, then charged almost all the way back thanks to a great eagle among other shots. But when she needed to make one more birdie to get into a playoff, she couldn't do it, despite two great chances. It may have all come down to a missed two foot par attempt on 13. Again at the Samsung, she was only a shot out of the lead going into the final round (after having been in the lead after the second round), but played the weakest final round of any of the leaders and was not much of a factor after 12 holes or so.

Se Ri still believed she could win two of the last four events, and coming into the CJ 9 Bridges Championship, where she was the defending champion, she doubtless had some confidence. Not only had she won in 2002, she dominated, taking a four shot lead after the first round with a tournament record 65, then maintaining that lead through horrible conditions the rest of the week for a six shot win, her largest of the year. Adding to her confidence this year was her great performance the previous week, where she became the first woman in 58 years to make the cut in a men's event, then went on to finish 10th. The press was still goo goo about Se Ri after that accomplishment, and her galleries were by far the loudest and most raucous all week. But by Sunday, it was Cinderella Shi Hyun Ahn who had taken over the headlines, capturing her first LPGA event in her first attempt, while Se Ri had to settle, once again, for second. What went wrong this week?

Last year it was Se Ri who raised the trophy