2005 ADT Tour Championship

The Tour Championship is traditionally the final event of the LPGA season. It has been played the past few years at Trump International, one of the hardest courses in southern Florida, and by and large, the scores tend to be high, especially if the weather becomes tricky. The course is dotted with water all over the place, and in particular the last three holes present challenges that have beaten down even the best players the women's game has to offer.

This year, the event supplied the tour with a dramatic finish, as the weather proved tricky most of the week, producing a fair number of pretty high scores in the field. Open only to the top thirty players on the money list, the Koreans sent a total of eight players to the ADT, plus one Korean American, Christina Kim, who had won the previous week's event, the Tournament of Champions. Four of these ladies - Soo-Yun Kang, Young Kim, Birdie Kim and Meena Lee - had never before qualified for this event (since Meena was a rookie she had never even had a chance to qualify before). Would one of the newcomers be able to topple Annika Sorenstam and claim the trophy? Or would one of the more experienced hands be able to do it?

Mi Hyun Kim was one of the 9 Koreans in the field at the ADT

Hee-Won started out the tournament with a bang

In the early going, the player who did the best was Hee-Won Han. This is somewhat surprising, since she had never done particularly well on this course in the past. But as she approached the final hole, she was four under par, thanks to a combination of solid driving and iron play and consistent putting. Since Hee-Won had won the Office Depot, player on Trump National, a few months previously, one had to wonder if she had somehow unlocked the secret to playing The Donald's courses in 2005. But on 18, she did not hit a great drive, and her approach went into the deep rough over by the left side of the green. From there, a par was going to be a challenge. So she avoided the challenge by chipping in for birdie. A neat solution, I must say! Her five under 67 put her into a tie for the lead with none other than Ms. Sorenstam.

But when Annika reached the 18th hole, she ran into her own problems. Her drive went right and buried in a bunker next to the water. She couldn't possibly hit out of there, but due to the hazard line, she had a tough time figuring out where to do her ball drop. She insisted that her drive had cut into the hazard at the last minute. Her playing partner Paula Creamer believed it had been going dead straight. Why the argument? If Annika was right, she could do a drop fairly near to the ball's current position, whereas if Creamer were right, the drop point would be all the way back by the tee. After calling in an official and arguing some more, Annika was deemed correct and Creamer was not happy about it. The brouhaha overshadowed Hee-Won's day, and Annika ended up with a double bogey and a 3 under par 69. But she would be back.

A few other Koreans had managed good rounds on Thursday, notably Soo-Yun Kang, who shot her own 69 to tie Annika in third. Birdie Kim, Christina Kim and Meena Lee all shot even par rounds, not bad at all on this course. But Young Kim, Jeong Jang and Mi Hyun Kim all shot 3 over par 75s to put themselves in bad shape right from the get go.

The Koreans had some other things to be proud of. On Thursday, only one player managed to make birdie on the par 4 16th: Soo-Yun Kang. And Christina Kim was the only player to make a birdie on 17. And both Meena Lee and Hee-Won managed to birdie 18, another tough hole (Meena by dunking a verrrry long birdie putt). The Sisters were definitely handling the tough conditions well!

On Friday, Kang started in a good place, but had trouble all day long. Particularly punishing was a double bogey on the 4th hole. She shot 3 over on the front nine, and added three more bogies versus just a single birdie on the back to end up with a 77 that seemingly knocked her right out of the tournament. But though she was back down to 2 over par and in a tie for 11th, she wasn't done just yet.

A couple other Koreans climbed into contention on Friday. JJ shot a 2 under par 70, which was a fantastic achievement on this difficult day, to move to 1 over total. Meena Lee also made a move. She made a wonderful long birdie on 17 to move to 3 under, just a couple shots out of the lead. But her approach on 18 found water, and she wound up with a double bogey there and a 71, to move to one under total.

Hee-Won Han also played pretty solidly most of the day. Her irons were not quiet as precise as they had been on Thursday, but she was still finding almost every fairway and green. On 12, she hit a laser to two feet for a birdie that moved her into a tie for the lead with Annika at 5 under par. But she made a couple of sloppy mistakes after that. She failed to get up and down from a bunker on 13 and fell back to four under. On the par 5 16th, she hit a nice wedge, perhaps not as close as she would have liked, but not bad. But then she proceeded to 3 putt for a bogey that knocked her back to a 3 under total, where she would finish the day. Still, this total was good enough to allow her to hold on to solo second place. In first, not surprisingly, was Annika Sorenstam, who rebounded from her troubles at the end of Thursday's round to shoot a 2 under par 70 to take a two shot lead over Hee-Won. The big mover on Friday was Cristie Kerr, who shot a 66 and wound up at 2 under, just behind Han. So it would be Hee-Won and Annika in the final round Saturday. Despite her mediocre finish, Han was still very much in it.

Kangsy struggled in round 2, playing with Annika...

... and being followed by Donald Trump, who
trailed her and Annika in a golf cart

Christina in a candid pose from before the
ADT Championship

One other player made a promising start to her day. Young Kim had started the action with three straight birdies to climb all the way to even par. If she could have held on to that, she could have been in contention going into the weekend. But she would go on to have four bogies and a double bogey as time went on, finally breaking her bad streak with a birdie on the tough 17th hole. She would shoot a 2 over par 74 for the day, erasing her promising start.

Young started Saturday's action much the same way, by birdieing two of the first three holes. Unfortunately, her day ended up following the same script, as she made two quick bogies and a double thereafter, and wound up shooting a 77. She would end up the week in second to last place, saved from last only by Birdie Kim, who had started out well on Thursday, but shot an 81 on the final day.

Both Meena Lee and Jeong Jang, who had nicely positioned themselves entering the weekend, also struggled on the third day, shooting 2 over par 74s. The conditions were brutal: swirling winds and rain, and tough flag positions to boot. At least, being this was south Florida, the temperatures were pretty hot, otherwise the course might have been a nightmare. But despite falling to over par positions, both ladies were still set up to possibly get top tens, maybe even win, because even the leaders would have tough days in these conditions.