|
Ji Yai Shin is the latest in a long line of
Korean teenagers who has made a big splash in the pro leagues.
In 2005, while still in high school, she was the only amateur
to win a KLPGA event that season when she claimed the SK Enclean
Invitational.
Shin's story is not entirely a happy one,
however. When she was still an amateur, she was practicing
on the driving range when she received a phone call telling
her that her mother had been killed in a car accident, and
her younger siblings critically injured. Her younger brother
and sister were so badly injured that they had to stay in
the hospital for nearly a year. It is rumored that Ji Yai
actually moved into the hospital with them to help take care
of them. To this day, she dedicates all her successes to the
memory of her mother.
Ji Yai turned pro at the end of 2005 and played
in Asia, where she won the Hong Kong Open. Returning to the
KLPGA as a rookie in 2006, she started her year brilliantly
with a pair of third place finishes in her first two events.
Then she surprised everyone by trumping a
top field, including American LPGA star Cristie Kerr, to win
the Korean Women's Open, the biggest event on the KLPGA schedule
all year. She kept up her torrid pace by finishing second
at the next event. As of that point, she had seized control
of the league, first in birdies, money earned and rounds under
par.
For a while, Hee Young Park kept pace, but
soon Shin's relentless consistency wore down all challengers.
She won a second time at the PAVV Invitational, and collected
one top finish after another after that. It seemed like almost
every week she would be in contention. Even those few events
where she was nowhere close to the leader, like when Jin Joo
Hong lapped the field at the SK Solux Invitational, Shin would
still be somewhere near the top of the leaderboard.
She wound up collecting an astounding 12 top
five finishes on the season. With several events to go, she
broke Se Ri Pak's ten year old record for most money made
in a season; she would wind up crushing it by more than 100
million won. She destroyed the field by 9 shots to win her
third event of the year at the Orient Chinese Open, and finished
the year with a scoring average of 69.72, the only sub-70
season scoring average in the history of the KLPGA tour. She
thus won every major award for the 2006 season, and all this
as an 18 year old rookie.
As it turned out, her 2007 season was so fantastic
that it made even her 2006 season, amazing as it was, pale
in comparison. Shin would play on four continents during the
year, contending for the title virtually every time she teed
it up. She started the year by joining Young Kim to represent
Korea at the World Cup; the pair would wind up third, just
one shot behind the American team of Juli Inkster and Pat
Hurst. Shin would then play two Australian events, notching
top fives in both (including a second at the ANZ Ladies Masters).
She would soon after dominate at the Thai Open, winning by
ten shots. And all this was before the KLPGA season had even
started.
Remarkably, she did not immediately dominate
the KLPGA at the start of the year. Two other young golfers,
Sun Ju Ahn and Eun Hee Ji, both got out to great starts. Ahn
won the Korean Women's Open, and Ji won two events in a row
and nearly made it three. For her part, Shin did notch a bunch
of top threes, and did win the MC Square tournament, but still
found herself in third on the money list.
That didn't last long, however. Starting with
the Seokyung Open, Shin went on a holy tear. She won three
straight events, becoming the first to do that on the KLPGA
since Mi Hyun Kim in the late nineties. After a brief break
to play at the US Women's Open (see below), Shin returned
to Korea, had an 'off week' where she only finished fifth,
then won the next two events. Her win at the fourth KB Star
Tour event was particularly memorable, for it made her only
the second golfer in history to win five times in a season
on the KLPGA tour. It wasn't easy: the first round was not
finished on the first day due to darkness. Shin had the first
round lead, but when they finished the round on the next day,
the referees stupidly placed the tee markers on one hole ten
yards closer. When they discovered the error, they had to
throw out the entire results from that round. This reduced
the event to two rounds. Shin had a weak second round, so
instead of having the lead, like she should have, she found
herself four strokes back. Not to worry: she shot a sizzling
65 in the third round and won anyway to tie the record.
The next week, she won again to become the
first KLPGAer to win 6 times on tour in a year. And she was
far from done. She would win three more events during the
season for an astounding nine total wins. Ji Yai Shin, who
had just the year before become the first woman to break 300
million won in one season, broke 600 million won in one season
in 2007. She won half the events she entered on the KLPGA,
and only twice finished outside the top 5 (and only once,
an 11th place finish, outside the top ten). For the second
straight year, she finished under 70 in scoring average, nearly
a stroke and a half ahead of Eun Hee Ji. And even then she
wasn't done: she won the Orient Ladies Chinese Open in December,
an event that counts towards the 2008 KLPGA season this year.
2007 also marked the year where Shin really
made a splash in international golf as well. Besides the World
Cup and other events mentioned above, she played her first
Majors and other top LPGA events, and by and large continued
her success there. After a weak SBS Open, she played quite
well at her first ever Major, the Nabisco, finishing 15th.
But it was at the US Women's Open where she made the biggest
splash. Riding her three event win streak on the KLPGA, she
played brilliantly at the Open, staying near the lead the
entire week, and even holding the lead all by herself entering
Sunday. She wound up finishing sixth, but made quite a name
for herself nonetheless.
The next month, she almost won the Evian Masters.
She made a couple of putting mistakes towards the end that
cost her, but still had a shot at the playoff for the title.
On the par 5 18th, she put her second shot into a greenside
bunker, than nearly hit her sand shot into the cup for eagle
(it stopped on the lip). The birdie she made there left her
one shot out of the playoff eventually won by Natalie Gulbis.
At the end of the year, Shin also played the
two big team events, the Kyoraku Cup and the Lexus Cup. She
was surprisingly weak at the Kyoraku, losing both her matches,
but made up for it at the Lexus, where she collected 2.5 points
for team Asia. Shin finished the year ranked 8th in the world,
the highest ranked Korean of all, and the only player not
playing on the LPGA who ranked in the top ten. And she is
still only 19; the mind boggles at what she might still do!
She started 2008 in brilliant fashion. She
teamed with good friend Eun Hee Ji to represent Korea at the
Women's World Cup. They started the week by teaming in best
ball to shoot a mind boggling 61 to take the lead. They kept
the lead or a share of it much of the rest of the week, eventually
finishing second to the Philippines. Shin next played the
Australian Ladies Open. On the final day, she shot a 67, at
the time the best round of the week by anyone, to take a two
shot clubhouse lead. It looked like she had the tournament
wrapped up, but Karrie Webb charged from behind with two birdies
on the final three holes and beat Shin in a two hole playoff.
Shin followed this with a 6th place at the ANZ Ladies Masters.
|
