Heart and Seoul

2007 has without a doubt been a slow year for Korean golf stars. By this point in 2006, Koreans had achieved fantastic things on all sorts of golf tours all over the world. Amy Yang had already won the ANZ Ladies Masters in Australia as a 16 year old high school student, the youngest ever to win a tournament on a major golf tour, male or female. Ji Yai Shin was on her way to a dominating performance on the KLPGA, challenged at the time by Hee Young Park. Song Hee Kim was starting her own reign of terror over on the Futures Tour; by May she had already become the youngest professional to win a professional event in the United States - yes, male or female.

And over on the LPGA tour, it seemed hardly a week went by where a Korean player wasn't in the mix. Koreans not only won the first two events of the year, both in Hawaii, they also finished second in those events as well. Seon Hwa Lee had already notched several runner up finishes by late April of 2006; Sung Ah Yim had stared down Annika Sorenstam for her first career win in Atlanta; and Sarah Lee and Aree Song had just missed out winning the Phoenix event as well.

Cut to 2007, and the landscape had changed markedly. Joo Mi Kim and Meena Lee both missed the cut in their title defenses in Florida; the Atlanta event doesn't even exist any longer, but Sung Ah Yim has not been playing all that well, anyway. Despite a plethora of high quality Korean rookies in 2007, only Angela Park was really putting up good results consistently. Song Hee Kim in particular was struggling to adapt to the big leagues; it took her only three events to notch her first win on the Futures Tour, but on the LPGA, she found it hard to even make the cut reliably. In event after event, it seemed like the Korean golfers were absent from contention when the tournament heated up on Sunday.

There had been a few bright spots. Jee Young Lee and Angela Park had both been in the mix at the Fields Open in Hawaii, although the win eventually went to Stacy Prammanasudh. Young Kim, Sarah Lee and Hye Jung Choi were showing promise, and so was Shi Hyun Ahn, who started her season with several top ten finishes. Se Ri Pak did miss an early cut, but otherwise was finishing in the top 20 every week. She had come oh so close to winning the one Major that has thus far eluded her, the Nabisco, before having a back nine collapse. And several other players were showing flashes of brilliance here and there.

The SemGroup Championship was contested May 4 through 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This event was formerly hosted by John Q. Hammons, and was played in September, but the powers-that-be decided to change its time to Spring. This proved to be a somewhat questionable idea. The weather that time of year in Oklahoma is rainy, to put it mildly, and tornadoes and thunderstorms sometimes threatened the 2007 edition with delays and even possible cancellation. The Tulsa area, however, had it easy compared to neighboring Kansas. The week before the event, the small town of Greensburg was nearly wiped off the map by a category 5 tornado, one of the nastiest in recorded history. It was a story that was still very much in the news as the tournament began.

After the first round, the leader of the event was an American named Nicole Castrale. Castrale had yet to win on tour, but had been having a solid 2007. She shot a 4 under par 68. Several more obscure women sat at 3 under. But a few Koreans managed to shoot 2 under par 69s on the first day to put themselves firmly in the hunt. One of those players was Se Ri Pak, who matched three birdies against a lone bogey in her round. Rookie Angela Park, newly married Gloria Park and Aree Song also shot 69s, making for three women with the same last name tied for fifth (Pak and Park are two different ways to westernize the same Korean surname). A shot further back was Jimin Kang, who had also had a strong 2007 campaign so far. Mi Hyun Kim and Seon Hwa Lee were the most notable Koreans tied at even par after day one.

After the second round was complete, it looked increasingly likely that a first time winner was going to claim the crown at the event. Tied for the lead at 4 under par were four women who all had one thing in common: they had never won an event on tour. Joining Castrale was long bomber Karin Sjodin, who had gone to school in Oklahoma; Stephanie Louden, and Reilly Rankin. Se Ri Pak had an up and down round, shooting four bogies but also four birdies to finish the day where she had started, at 2 under par. Se Ri's biggest problem in recent events had been her tendency to play well until the final round, then play very poorly on Sunday to blow any chance she had to win. Would that happen again? Only two shots back, she certainly loomed as someone who should be able to strike terror into the hearts of the newbies atop the leaderboard.

Shooting a great round on the tricky course, and moving herself into contention as a result, was Mi Hyun Kim. This was certainly an unexpected development. The course played at over 6,600 yards, one of the longest courses on tour, but the wet conditions had made it play far longer even than that. It was certainly not a surprise that a long hitter like Sjodin (or Se Ri, for that matter), would be in contention, but Kimmie was not even in the top 100 among hitters on tour. She was keeping herself in the mix through her accuracy off the tee and her amazing putting. More than that, really: her 68 on day two was one of the best rounds of the day. It left her just one shot out of the lead with one round to go.

Several other Koreans and top players lurked a few shots back. Juli Inkster was at 1 under par, and she was certainly capable of making up three shots in a round. Lorena Ochoa, the world's number one golfer, was also at one under. Among Koreans at that score were Meena Lee, Angela Park, and Aree Song. Young Kim produced a 68 of her own on day two to move to even par for the tournament. Even golfers five or six shots back had a chance at the title if, as predicted, the weather turned bad. So there was no lack of potential winners among the Koreans. But could one of them rise to the occasion and get that first win of 2007? And if so, who would it be? The odds definitely favored Kimmie or Se Ri, just based on their previous track records.

On the final day, the round was played under the threat of possible tornadoes. As a result, the tee times were moved up several hours in the hopes of missing the worst of the weather. In the tough conditions, it was Inkster who drew first blood. Starting Sunday at one under, she made multiple birdies to move to 4 under and the outright lead. Meanwhile, the untested players struggled, and by the halfway point of the round, every one of the young non-winners was over par and struggling to remain in the tournament. Except for one, but she is somewhat of an unusual case. Ai Miyazato has yet to win on the LPGA tour, but she has a double digit victory total back in her homeland of Japan, so she's hardly a player who has not been tested in a final round before. She made a move on this day, and with one hole to go, after a clutch par save on the 17th, she sat at 3 under par. Given the conditions, if she could post that as her score, or even birdie the final hole, she might very well end up the winner. On the final hole, she put her approach into a bunker, however, and could not get up and down. So, she posted a 2 under par, and had to wait to see if that would be good enough for the win or a playoff.

As for the Koreans, Se Ri was not having much luck on this day. For the third event in a row, she put herself into a good position going into the final round, only to struggle on that day. She wound up shooting a 3 over par 74 and faded to a tie for 13th finish, just one shot out of a top ten. It was not a terrible finish, but given the fact that most of the players in contention were unproven on the LPGA, she probably let a golden chance to get her first win of the year go by. All she needed would have been a 70 to tie, a 69 to win outright. Young Kim, meanwhile, continued her excellent year, shooting a one under par round, one of the few under par rounds of the day. She finished at one under total, a tie for fifth, although she missed a great birdie chance on the last hole that would have moved her into a tie with Miyazato for the clubhouse lead. Meena Lee, Jeong Jang and Gloria Park all finished tied with Se Ri at 13th, just out of the top ten.