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Volume 4, Number 4, May 24, 2006 | |||||||||||||||
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The Quiet Korean |
Pages 1,
2, 3, 4, Michelob
Gallery, Sybase
Gallery, Michelob Results, Sybase Results |
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The event used to be held in July. This meant that the weather was often
great and the crowds decent. But it also punished the golf course: the
grass was sensitive in the heat. The LPGA moved the event to May last
year, but this has produced its own problems. For one thing, the crowds
tend to be sparser now than they were before. For another, the weather
is often rainy this time of year in New York. That was certainly the case
at this year's Sybase. Rain drenched the course during the practice rounds,
and returned with a vengeance during the event. To make it even more challenging,
the wind was tough this year, making club selection tricky. And then there
were the greens. Wykagyl is known for some of the most challenging greens
on tour. The course can yield low scores when the conditions are right.
But it can also be mighty tough at other times. Particularly treacherous
is the par 3 16th hole, perhaps the most treacherous hole the ladies play
all year. The green is so sloped that, if one leaves oneself a downhill
putt, it's nearly impossible to stop it anywhere near the hole. Several
times during the week, players would tap the ball only to watch it slowly
roll past the hole and all the way off the green. The course also has
its share of holes with false fronts: an approach will put a ball near
the hole, but it's an illusion, because in fact the green is so sloped
at the spot the ball lands that the ball will roll backwards away from
the flag. Sometimes the ball will continue rolling until it is 20 or 30
yards off the front of the green. The 9th hole is a particularly nasty
hole in this regard, as certain top players would discover as the week
went on.
Heavy rains hit the course in the afternoon. Although most of the players
managed to get into the house before things got too bad, 15 players were
not able to finish their rounds. Included in that group was Sun Young
Yoo. The rookie was two under par after 17 holes, just one shot out of
the lead. She would have a long wait before finally playing that last
hole. Among the other Koreans who were doing well were rookie Seon Hwa
Lee, who shot a 70 in the morning rounds. Mi Hyun Kim, who also has a
good track record on this course in the past, shot a 70, too. A gaggle
of Korean players finished at even par, including Kyeong Bae (another
rookie), Jeong Jang, Young Jo, Young Kim, and Gloria Park. For Gloria,
a past winner at this event and coming off a second place finish in the
2005 event, it marked the first chance in 2006 to really make an impression
on a leaderboard. To put it mildly, she had struggled immensely thus far
in the new season. She had not been helped by a family emergency (a sick
grandmother), which forced her to drop out of one of the Hawaiian events
and return to Korea. Fortunately, the grandmother got better, and Gloria's
game is starting to show signs of life. She had produced a 14th place
finish at the Franklin American Mortgage Championship for her first top
20 of the year. She hoped that returning to Wykagyl, a place where she
has had more success than any other, would allow her to kick her game
back into its usual powerful place.
They were finally able to get back out there on Saturday. After waiting
two days, Yoo made a bogey on her final hole to finish the day at one
under par. Shortly thereafter, the second round got under way, and the
story of the round was Gloria Park. Gloria has had a little indecision
about what name she wanted the press to use for her this season. At times
she has called herself by her Korean name, Hee Jung, ostensibly to make
it easier for her Korean fans to find her on leaderboards. But that, of
course, made it harder for her Western fans, who had no idea who 'Hee
Jung' was (or at the least tended to think of her as 'Gloria' first and
foremost). So a few events in, she changed things up again, and now goes
by the jaw dropping moniker of Gloria Hee Jung Park. For sake of ease,
I'll just keep referring to her as Gloria for the time being! Anyway,
Gloria, or Hee Jung, or Gloria Hee Jung, or whatever you want to call
her, really burned up the course on this day. In truly terrible conditions
made even more challenging by swirling winds, she produced a 4 under par
67 to climb to the top of the leaderboard at 4 under. She might have been
in even better condition had she not bogied her final hole, the deadly
par 4 9th, when her approach shot rolled all the way back down the hill
into the fairway and she could not get it up and down from there. Still,
she was upbeat after her round, and because she played early in the morning,
she got to sit back and watch the rest of the field try to catch her.
Meanwhile, several more Korean players took their shot at Gloria's lead on Saturday only to fall short. Hee-Won Han started the day at 3 under, but got off to a terrible start, bogeying three of her first four holes. It looked like she might collapse, but she regrouped and birdied the fifteenth before bogeying the nasty 16th hole. At that point she was at even par, four shots out of the lead. Although she would never quite recover from that, she did make a run to get herself back into contention, birdying 18 and 3 to briefly move to one over for the day before a final bogey on 5 knocked her back to 2 over. She ended up with a 73 and a one under par total. Not bad, really; only three shots back, she still was very much in the title hunt. Seon Hwa Lee kept her chances alive with an even par round to also finish at one under par, while Jeong Jang shot a one over par round and ended up at +1 for the event. Sun Young Yoo, however, shot a 4 over par 75 to fade to +3, and Kyeong Bae, Young Jo and Young Kim all shot two over par 73s. So it looked like Gloria, Seon Hwa and Hee-Won were the best bets for the Koreans. But could any of them stop a rejuvenated Sorenstam? |
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