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Fairways and Greens
Phuket Thailand Ladies Masters
Although the seasons on all the major golf tours are over for the
year, there are still golf tournaments occurring in the world. And Korean
golfers are participating in them.
One such event is the Phuket Thailand Ladies Masters. This event was organized by the Thailand Ladies Golf Association, and featured Thai stars such as Virada Nirapathpongporn and the Song twins playing in front of their fans. The tournament was designed to help promote the island of Phuket, which had been devastated a year earlier in the Asian tsunami, but has since recovered and is ready for tourists to come back again. In all, representatives from 16 countries played, including a gaggle from Korea. Not surprisingly, the Koreans made a big showing on the leaderboard.
The event was played between December 15 - 17th. The eventual winner was a Thai amateur named Nontaya Srisawang, who managed to hold off challenges from a number of pros. In second place was KLPGA Rookie of the Year Hee-Young Park, who closed with a day's best 68 to just miss catching Miss Srisawang. In all, six Koreans managed to finish in the top ten. Congratulations to them all!
Here are the top Korean finishers at this event:
(Koreans in bold)
1. Nontaya Srisawang (73-68-72) -3
2. Hee-Young Park (76-70-68) -2
3. Eun Hee Ji (70-72-73) -1
4. Ji Yai Shin (70-72-74) Even
6. Jeong Eun Lee 3 (75-70-72) +1
6. Virada Nirapathpongporn (70-73-74) +1
8. Hyun Hee Moon (73-70-75) +2
8. Aree Song (70-73-75) +2
Hee-Young Park at the Pinx Cup
Korean world Cup team
The Korean team has been named for the second annual Women's World
Cup of Golf. In 2005, the team of Bo Bae Song and Jeong Jang finished
tied for second at this event, just a couple of shots behind the Japanese
winners. In 2006, Bo Bae will return to the event, and will be teamed
with Meena Lee. Jeong Jang, by virtue of her top ranking on the LPGA,
should have been asked to join Song first, but presumably she turned down
the offer, leading to the next highest ranked Korean on the LPGA money
list, Lee, getting the invite. Good luck to them! Hopefully they'll do
even better than Jang and Song did in '05.
Meena and Bo Bae
Birdie painting
Rob Wood is a professional painter who specializes in sports art. He lives
in Denver, and recently he painted a depiction of Birdie Kim's unforgettable
final shot at the 2005 US Women's Open for the Cherry Hills Country Club,
the site of this year's Open. He tells me that he is working on other
paintings of Seoul Sisters, so check his site from time to time to see
if photos of them have been posted!
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