SeoulSisters Awards

Player of the Year:
Ji Yai Shin
In the five years I have been giving this year end award, this is the first time a player who does not concentrate on the LPGA has won it. In 2003, we gave it to Se Ri Pak, who was so clearly the most accomplished Korean women's golfer that it looked as though she would dominate this award from then on. But in 2004, she started her monumental struggles, and Grace Park captured the award. In 2005, both Park and Pak were stuck in career straining slides. But at that point, Jeong Jang emerged from the pack to capture the award, on the heels of her breakthrough win at the Women's British Open and her first million dollar plus season. In 2006, the battle came down to JJ, having another fabulous year, and Mi Hyun Kim, who won twice and had her best year on tour since 2002. Kimmie edged her fellow mighty mite out, however.

Which brings us to 2007, and the player SeoulSisters.com considers the Korean golfer who was the most impressive this season: Ji Yai Shin, the KLPGA superstar who smashed one record after another on her way to the top Rolex ranking among all Korean golfers in the world. Note that, despite the fact I am giving this award to Shin, I am not necessarily saying that she is the best Korean golfer in the world (although she may very well be). I am saying that her achievements in the calendar year of 2007 made her the golfer who most deserved this award.

This is not the first time that a golfer playing on a tour other than the LPGA was considered for this highest honor. In 2006, Song Hee Kim had a marvelous, record shattering performance on the Futures Tour, winning five times and becoming the youngest professional to ever win a pro event in the States. And Ji Yai Shin set all sorts of records on the KLPGA in 2006, winning three times, becoming the first player to ever card a sub-70 scoring average, and shattering Se Ri Pak's nearly ten year old record for most money earned in a single season. But achievements on lesser tours like the Futures and the KLPGA have to be weighed appropriately against the big tour. Quite frankly, it is more impressive to be a mid ranked player on the LPGA than to be even the top player on those other tours. So the achievements of top caliber LPGA players like Kimmie, JJ, Hee-Won Han and Seon Hwa Lee, even though they did not involve records or as many wins, came out on top.

But in 2007, Shin was so overwhelming that she simply could not be denied again. In 2006, she had made over 300 million won, but in 2007, she more than doubled that total, absolutely annihilating that tour's most money in a season record. In all of history, no player had ever won more than five times in a single season; not Se Ri, not Mi Hyun, nobody. Shin won 9 times. To be more precise, 9 out of 18 times, or 50% of the tournaments she played. And even when she wasn't winning, she was almost always in contention. She had only one tournament all year on the KLPGA where she was not in the top ten, and that was an 11th place. Only one other time was she outside the top 5, a 6th place. Every other finish was a top five, 16 of 18. She once again had a sub-70 scoring average as well.

What's more, she accomplished all of those things with one of the stronger KLPGA tours of recent memory. The next two players on the money list were also powerhouses who accomplished a lot in 2007. Eun Hee Ji won twice, and showed her level of talent by notching two top five finishes in LPGA events she played: a second place at the Kolon-Hana Bank, and a tie for 5th with Se Ri Pak at the Women's British Open, a Major. Sun Ju Ahn, the third ranked player on tour, won three times on the KLPGA, which, any other year, would have made her a dominating presence on tour. Ahn collected a top ten at the Evian Masters herself, and also contended at the ANZ Ladies Masters, which she led much of the first few days. As well as those two players, Shin also had to regularly contend with Hee Young Park, who finished third at LPGA Q-School this winter and who has been one of the two or three best players on tour the past few years, and Na Yeon Choi, who won once, contended often, and has also been a tough KLPGA star. That's on top of the other solid players like Hyun Hee Moon, Hae Jung Kim, Rookie of the Year Ha Neul Kim, Da Ye Na (The Ladies Asian Golf Tour player of the year for 2007), and many more. As well, Shin played and beat numerous LPGA Koreans who returned to play the odd KLPGA event or two. Among those falling victim to Shin in these events in 2007 were Young Kim and Mi Hyun Kim (both of whom won on the LPGA in 2007), Jin Joo Hong, Kyeong Bae, Soo-Yun Kang, and many more.

In 2007, Shin proved herself on the international stage as well as the domestic one. She played her first Major in 2007, in fact three of the four contested, and did well in all of them. At the Kraft Nabisco, she finished with a respectable 15th place ranking. At the next Major she played, the US Women's Open, she was in contention for much of the week, even leading the field on Saturday night, before winding up in 6th place. At the British she struggled more, but still wound up with a 28th place finish. In general she was more inconsistent when she played international events than she was at home, but that's only because she was so mind bendingly consistent at home that anything less than nonstop top fives would seem a letdown. She started her year by representing Korea (along with Young Kim) at the Women's World Cup in South Africa. They were never really in the hunt, thanks to the fact that Paraguay took a huge lead on day one and never slipped after that; but they were duking it out with an American team consisting of Hall of Famer Juli Inkster and recent US Women's Open Runner up Pat Hurst for second. They would finish one shot behind that team in third, thanks largely to a two stroke penalty they incurred for taking a drop that violated a local rule. Shin next played two events in Australia, where she finished top five in both, including a second at the ANZ Ladies Masters (behind only Karrie Webb). She followed that up with her lone Ladies Asian Golf Tour event of the year, the Thailand Ladies Open, which she won by ten shots. Four events on three continents, all top fives, including one runaway win and one solid second.

On the LPGA, she had some great results as well. Her first LPGA event of the year was also her worst: at the SBS Open, she finished tied for 40th with Mi Hyun Kim among others. She improved mightily at her next events, the Nabisco and the US Women's Open. She played a couple more events that summer: at the HSBC World Match Play, she lost in the first round, but considering that almost every top player, including Lorena Ochoa and Annika Sorenstam, lost in either the first or second round at that tournament, it's hard to read much into that result. Then came the Evian Masters in France, where she once again put herself into the hunt to win. It all came down to a few mistakes on the last couple of holes, including a muffed putt on the 17th hole that cost her a stroke. On the par 5 18th, she put her second shot into a greenside bunker, then nearly chipped in for eagle, her ball stopping perched on the lip of the cup. Her tap in birdie left her one shot out of the playoff between Jeong Jang and Natalie Gulbis eventually won by the American, but her tie for third was still her career best finish on the LPGA tour. She was also somewhat substandard at the Kolon-Hana Bank Championship in October, finishing tied for 23rd. But that event was only two rounds long, so it's possible she may have been able to climb further up the leaderboard had the tournament continued (in fact, she was playing well in the aborted third round, so that is quite possible). Her LPGA record was not scintillating, but three good finishes in Majors (including one great one) and a top three in an elite field event is nothing to sneeze at, either. And considering that she was playing those events not as someone living and working week to week in those countries, but as someone who flew in simply to play in those events, her record was quite good indeed.

At the end of the season, she had a fairly weak showing at the team Kyoraku Cup, losing both her matches, but bounced back nicely by going undefeated at the Lexus Cup the following week (2 wins, one tie). She also collected yet another tournament win at the Orient Ladies China Open in China, an event where she was the defending champion. The tournament, co-sanctioned by the KLPGA, will count towards the 2008 KLPGA season. So, even before 2008 had started, she already had a leg up on her league competition. That made a grand total of 11 wins in the calendar year of 2007 (including the Thailand Open), far and away the most any Korean accomplished anywhere in the world.

The skeptics among you may still wonder if what Shin accomplished was good enough to top any of the great LPGA Korean golfers and their 2007 seasons, especially in a year when a record five of them finished in the top ten on the LPGA tour. If Shin were playing full time on the LPGA in 2007, would she have been able to finish ahead of those women on the money list? Would she have won any events, let alone double digit numbers? Would she have even won the Rookie of the Year trophy against competition like Angela Park and the other fine 18 and 19 year old Korean newcomers?

Well, of course there is no way to definitively answer those questions, since it would be just an unprovable thought experimentt. The fact is, Shin did what she did, played mostly on the KLPGA tour, and absolutely dominated an unusually strong KLPGA league like she was a giant among children. For good measure, she sets a bundle of records, had a few great LPGA and LET results, and acquitted herself more than adequately at the Lexus and World Cups. But how does that compare with the best the LPGA had to offer in 2007?

Really, there were five Korean golfers on the LPGA tour who were in the running for this award, the five who did the best on the money list: Mi Hyun Kim, Jeong Jang (both of whom have won this award before), Seon Hwa Lee, Jee Young Lee and Angela Park. The other Korean rookies were great, but Angela Park was clearly better, so if Park couldn't top Shin, it wouldn't make much sense to consider the other rookies. Sarah Lee had her moments, but was pretty inconsistent in the latter half of the year, and Se Ri Pak was too distracted by her Hall of Fame year to really put up the top numbers that would put her into consideration. So, let's look at the top Koreans I mentioned, and see how they stack up to Shin.

Firstly, those five players combined won a total of two events in 2007, less than one fifth of the number Shin collected. Granted, winning an LPGA event is a bigger deal than winning a KLPGA event, but that is still quite a stunning difference. And none of those five won more than one event in 2007. For what it's worth, the Rolex rankings (flawed though they are) reflected this. Shin ended the year as the top Korean player in those rankings, despite the fact that Rolex rates KLPGA wins far lower than LPGA ones. Shin was the only player not playing full time on the LPGA who finished in the top ten.

Angela Park had an undeniably great year: only one missed cut, two top fives in Majors, including a second at the US Women's Open, and 8 total top tens. She came close to earning a million bucks in her first year on tour, and finished 8th on the money list. And she did all that as a younger golfer than Ji Yai Shin, with even less pro experience than Ji Yai had. In addition, she was the top player on the Lexus Cup team for the Internationals, and carded a 63 at one point in 2007. But Park did not win a single event in 2007; indeed, she has not won an event anywhere since turning pro early in 2006. We have never given this top award to a winless player, so it was hard to give the nod to a player who had never won over one who had 11 wins this year alone. Yes, winning on the LPGA is tougher than on the KLPGA, and Angela has come close to winning. But Shin actually came even closer to capturing a win on the LPGA tour than Park did, when she came within one roll of that playoff at the Evian. And she did it in far fewer events than Park. And so, impressive as Angela's rookie season was, I give the nod to Ji Yai Shin for the more impressive year overall.

Jee Young Lee was the lowest ranking of the five Korean finalists on the LPGA, but she still had a great year. She notched three second place finishes, including one at the British Open, the fourth Major. She probably should have won the Michelob Ultra, but for a really stupid putting error during the playoff, and were it not for an incredible run by Stacy Prammanasudh, might have won the Fields Open as well. She had three top tens in the four Majors she played this year, and came close to a top ten in the Nabisco as well. And she earned close to a million dollars for the year and finished 10th on the money list, all without the benefit of a win. Add onto that a great run at the HSBC World Match Play, where she lost to Mi Hyun Kim in the quarterfinals, and flawless golf in the two team events she played (she was undefeated and untied both at the Kyoraku and Lexus Cups), and you have the makings of a fabulous player. But like Angela Park, Lee did not collect a win in 2007. Yes, bad luck played a little part in that, but you have to judge someone based on what happened, not on what might have happened. Shin faced some bad luck herself, including that two stroke penalty at the World Cup and the round that was canceled at the KB Star Tour #4 when she was in the lead. There's no doubt that Jee Young is a monster talent, is improving by leaps and bounds, and looks like she is on the cusp of superstardom. But in 2007, she just didn't have the total qualifications to top Shin.

Jeong Jang had a third straight great year on tour in 2007. For the third straight time, she broke a million dollars in earnings. She did have a weird year, though. For much of the first part of the season, she was not much of a factor. She did finish tied for third at the Safeway International in March, but other than that, did not play all that well early on. She even missed a few cuts in there, rare for her these days, and had a very poor Kraft Nabisco. By May she was getting better. She notched a top ten at the US Women's Open, and a tie for fifth in defending her title in Rochester. She did all right at the HSBC as well, but her best result of the year came soon thereafter at the Evian Masters. She made a great run on the final day to get into a playoff with Natalie Gulbis for the title. She ended up losing, but it was still a second place finish at a premiere event. However, the following week, she missed the cut at the British, an event she has won in the past and where she usually plays quite well. She would go on to have 9 top tens on the season, but no wins, her first winless season since 2004. This was still a great year, but clearly the weakest of her last three. She had many more top tens both in 2005 and 2006, and she earned a good deal of her million this season in just two events, the Open and the Evian. She did beat Shin at the Evian, but barely, but finished behind her at the other three Majors they both competed in (and usually a lot behind her). JJ also had a bad time at the team events, where she had a rare losing record among the Korean golfers at the Lexus Cup. Though she won both of her matches at the Kyoraku, she also had the misfortune of missing the crucial playoff putt that handed the Cup to the Japanese team. So, a very good year for JJ, but not the kind of stuff she was producing at her peak, and thus not good enough to topple Shin.

The remaining two Koreans were the two that were the closest to grabbing the prize. To my mind, it was a very close decision for Player of the Year between Shin, Mi Hyun Kim and Seon Hwa Lee. But in the end, Shin still gets the nod. First, let's talk about Seon Hwa. The 2006 Rookie of the Year had a great first year on tour, but in some ways exceeded that performance in 2007. For one thing, she established herself as inarguably the best Match Play golfer among the Koreans, and probably in the world of women's golf. She not only won the HSBC Women's World Match Play, one of the toughest events in the world to capture, she also went undefeated at Match Play at the 2007 Lexus Cup, and was unbeaten at the Kyoraku Cup as well (though that is stroke play). She had 8 top tens and made more than a million dollars. She also finished 5th on the money list, her career best. But if you look closer at Seon Hwa's record, some notable flaws emerge. For one, she did not have a very good record in Majors (in fact, this has been a problem all through her career). Indeed, she missed the cut at two of them, the first time she had missed cuts in her LPGA career. Even her best Major finish was only a tie for 25th at the US Women's Open, well behind Shin (she was behind Shin at all three Majors they both played, in fact, as well as at the Evian). Another troubling thing about Lee's 2007 record was that she really didn't contend in many tournaments other than the Match Play. Indeed, her best finish at a tournament other than that was a tie for third at the Kolon-Hana Bank, the only other top five she had all year, and the only time she really had a good shot at taking a stroke play title in 2007. Contrast that with 2006, where she had three runner up finishes in addition to her lone win. So, as much of a talent as Lee is, and as impressive as her win and team event achievements were, she just didn't do enough to be considered the Player of the Year over 11 time winner Shin.

Which brings us to Mi Hyun Kim, in my opinion the strongest LPGA Korean in 2007. Kimmie had another great year, finishing fourth on the money list, the highest of any Korean in several years. She only had one win in 2007 (as opposed to the two she had in 2006), but it was an impressive one, on a course ill suited to her strengths, in a playoff against a tough American Hall of Famer, Juli Inkster. Kimmie collected ten top tens during the year, and unlike Seon Hwa, had several more great chances to win through the season. She played especially well at the HSBC Match Play, beating Jee Young Lee before losing a tight, tough match against the eventual winner, Seon Hwa. Kimmie would win the consolation match and collect $200,000 for her week's efforts, despite struggling with a nagging injury she acquired during her match with Lee. She also was in the hunt at Corning and the Samsung (where she rallied for second). She had a decent year at the Majors; she collected a top ten at the US Women's Open and a 15th at the LPGA Championship, but was only 30th at the Nabisco and, as she usually does, she missed the cut in Britain (something about the British Open just does not agree with her; since her second place finish in 2001, she has missed the cut almost every year thereafter). Shin outperformed Kimmie at every Major this year where they were both in the field, even the Open. At the ADT Championship, Kimmie played extremely well the first two days and half of the third before a few mistakes put her entry into the finals in jeopardy. She was forced into a playoff following a disastrous 18th hole, but rose marvelously to the occasion, nailing a brilliant iron to a few feet to make birdie and advance. She also played well in captaining the Kyoraku Cup, winning her one match. And she did all this despite a plethora of injuries and ailments that seemed to constantly affect her game all through the year. Put simply, it was another gutsy year for the tiny but determined star. If I were asked, who is the best Korean golfer in the world right now, Kimmie would be given strong consideration for that title.

But was she the player of the year? It's certainly true that she struggled against injuries while Shin was pretty much injury free, and it's arguably true that she has the bigger heart. But in the end, the award should be primarily about results. It's true that Peanut had an excellent year, playing top flight fields, but she had her share of weaker tournaments, too. Shin, meanwhile, playing admittedly weaker fields for the most part, had a year so incredible that it will be talked about on the KLPGA tour for years to come. And she had her share of great performances in the big leagues, the few times she jetted in to play for a week or two before returning to Korea. Shin went from being another teen star who looked like she could be the next Se Ri (there have been a few of those since Se Ri's heyday in the late 90s), to the undoubted heir to Se Ri's mantle, largely thanks to her play this last year. For that reason, Ji Yai Shin is the SeoulSisters.com Player of the Year. Here's hoping that she has such a great 2008 it makes what came before seem like just a warm up!

Honorable Mentions:
Mi Hyun Kim, Seon Hwa Lee, Jee Young Lee, Angela Park