Se Ri Makes History (cont.)

Now in 9th place, Se Ri next tackled the tricky par 4 14th. She immediately started laughing after hitting her drive, not a good sign. But it was fine, straight but perhaps not very long. Her approach went into the greenside bunker, and her out was terrible, ending up some 25 feet past the hole. Looked like a bogey for sure, but her par save was fantastic, tracking all the way. Alas, it lipped out in the middle of Se Ri's fist pump. How rude! The bogey moved her back to 2 under for the tournament, and into a tie for 10th. Now she could not afford any more mistakes to achieve the top ten.

But next was the 587 yard par 5 15th. She hit two good woods, but only got her third to within 15 feet and had to settle for a two putt par. On 16, a 404 yard par 4, she hit a drive slightly left, but still in the fairway. The lie was again 6 inches or so under her feet, and like on the 18th on Saturday, she responded with a great iron 8 feet left of the hole. But she missed the birdie.

Just two holes to go, and it was looking like she needed to get to 3 under to ensure herself of the top ten. But her tee shot on the par 3 17th was not too good, and she two putt for par. So it came down to the par 4 350 yard 18th. Her tee shot was left again, just like it had been on Saturday. Her lie was once again under her feet. And just like Saturday, she hit a great iron to 12 feet right of the hole. So the birdie chance was there, but she could not curl it in and settled for a one under par 71 and a total score of 2 under par for the tournament.

Another great drive on Sunday

Se Ri basks in the glow of her tenth place finish

She was in 10th and now had to wait to see how the rest of the field finished. But as it turned out, there was only one player who hadn't finished, who could have caught her, and he did not. So Se Ri Pak did the unthinkable: managed a tenth place finish in her first ever men's tournament.

Immediately, the Western Press tried to put her achievement in "perspective". One pointed out that, though she had made strides forward for women's golf, she 'hadn't really competed'. Which is, of course, silly. For if Se Ri did not compete, then neither did the 110+ men that she beat. What happened is that two guys made a move and separated themselves from the rest of the field (the winning score was 13 under par, the second place was 12 under, and third place was 7 under). And that commentator, like just about everyone else from the West, did not actually see what had happened. They depended on a three paragraph daily summary from the Associated Press that did not give a lot of detail, and a few video images that were not given context (was that putt for par? Birdie? How many putts like that had she missed?).

It was just Se Ri's luck that she achieved this accomplishment on a course and against a field that would be virtually invisible to Western eyes, allowing the spinmeisters of the Western press to make ridiculous assertions, such as the easiness of the course (with provably false statements as I pointed out above) or that the Korean PGA is 'obviously' 'three steps below the Nationwide Tour'. This is an actual quote from an e-mail I received from Tim Rosaforte, a Golf writer for Golf Digest, when I questioned a negative statement he had made about Se Ri's achievement. Turns out he based his assessment of the Korean Tour ENTIRELY on the fact that Se Ri had done well against them (he had not been secretly watching KPGA events on the sly!). In other words, he assumed (though he'd deny it, probably) that any men she could beat must be terrible because, after all, she's a woman, then used that low assessment of the men she played against as 'proof' that what Se Ri had done wasn't very impressive. That's circular logic, folks, and utterly invalid. As further proof that the KPGA tour was terrible, he used the fact that John Daly, noted past-his-prime golfer, had recently won the Korean Open. However, that event was not even a KPGA event but an Asian PGA event. I just hope he is more diligent in his research the rest of the time.

Not every shot was perfect, but she still played pretty
well!

In the end, you can say about Se Ri after this event exactly what you could say before it. That she is one heck of a golfer. Can she 'compete' with the men? Could she make the cut in a PGA event? Does it even matter? I think nothing has been settled for most of these questions. But for the last question, I would say no, it doesn't matter. We can just be thankful we are here to watch her work her magic, and can eagerly look forward to her next achievement, no matter what the gender of her opponents may be.