Se Ri Makes History (cont.)

Pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

On Friday, the conditions were a little easier, but the pressure was much greater. Yet again, Se Ri responded like the champion she is. She had good birdie chances on 1 and 2, but missed both by inches. Again on 5, she was just a little bit off a birdie. The par 3 6th, which she had birdied on Thursday, proved trickier for her. She hit her tee shot well, but it did not bite and rolled all the way off the green. Fortunately her chipping was stellar, and she left herself an easy par.

Se Ri drives during round 2

Se Ri out of the bunker

She finally made a mistake on 7, when she hit a so-so bunker shot and could not save par from the fringe. This moved her to 1 over. But she got that back on the par 5 8th with a five footer for birdie. She parred the next few holes, barely missing another birdie on 11 when the ball lipped out and stopped half a foot from the cup. But after another par on 12, Se Ri started to struggle when she hit the tough 13th. Her tee shot went into a fairway bunker. It was one of those hits where she did not maintain her pose at the end, meaning she knew she'd mis-hit it. Her bunker shot was terrible, and flopped into the water. A double bogey looked likely, but on her fourth shot she hit a wedge over the water to within two feet of the hole. An absolute masterpiece in that situation. Easy bogey. On 14 it was her approach that cost her; another sloppy iron that missed the green, and her chip went four feet past the hole. She could not save par.

At this point she was starting to unravel, but she just needed to hang in for four more holes and she would easily make the cut. At that point, it looked like the cut would be 5 over par, and she was at 2 over par. And just like she often does, she turned it up a notch. She played the par 5 15th to an easy par, but on 16 she gave herself a tiny birdie putt that infuriatingly lipped out. Similarly on 17, she had a longer birdie putt, but it stopped one ball length right of the hole. Still determined to make a birdie, she hit her approach on the 350 yard 18th to 6 feet, but could not make the birdie.

The round was not vintage Se Ri. She missed a bunch of good birdie chances by the barest of margins, and struggled a bit on the back nine. She ended up with a 2 over par 74. But most importantly, she had done what few had thought was possible. She had made the cut in a men's event. And she did it easily. The cut ended up being 6 over par, four shots worse than Se Ri's score. Though she had lost ground on the leaders, she was still in 29th place, only six shots out of the lead. An ecstatic Se Ri told the press how thrilled she was and how nervous she had been. She now reset her sites on a new goal: making a top ten. It seemed unlikely, but after all, she was still in a position where she could WIN. She told them that now she could be more aggressive and really go for it. The best was yet to come!

Se Ri and one of her playing partners
on Friday

The one sour note was struck by her playing partner Shin, who grumbled that he felt the course was set up so Se Ri could make the cut, and that in fact he knew she would do so. Of course, there was no such quote from him before she made the cut, so we have to take his word for it. But the simple answer to his complaint is that, of course Se Ri was not going to play a 7,500 yard course where her lack of distance would be a prohibitive problem. She was obviously going to pick a course where she had a good chance to make the cut. But to argue that there was some collusion in helping her make it is not only sour grapes, it takes away from the great achievement Se Ri had managed. Naturally, his negative comments were the ones that were transmitted all over the world via the AP, while his positive comments of a day earlier were somehow not. The male press is still not willing to give a women golfer her due, it seems. Se Ri would just have to make them sit up and take notice.

Also a bit disappointing was that, despite the fact Se Ri's made cut had made news all over the world, the LPGA's own web site did not feature any story on it. They don't seem to realize the value of the great player they have right under their own noses.