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Minny (born Min-Sun) Yeo is one of the few
married Korean players on tour. She started playing golf at
age 13. After coming to the States, she attended the Professional
Golfers College (yes, there is such a place!), where she received
the MVP award in her graduating class of 1997. She then competed
on the Players West Tour in 1998 and 1999, winning a couple
times.
She managed to qualify as a non-exempt player
for the LPGA in 2000, but had a pretty weak first season.
Indeed, she only made two cuts all season, with a high finish
of 47th, and made only 3 thousand dollars. She went back to
Q-School in 2001, again getting non-exempt status. Her 2001
season was also lackluster; she only made three cuts, and
improved her earnings to $4,500. Fortunately, she again got
non-exempt status for 2002 at that year's Q-School.
In 2002, she finally started to show signs
that she could become a better player. She played 7 tournaments
and missed only three cuts. She had her first top 40 performance
at the Rochester tournament, finishing 33rd. Then, she surprised
everyone by taking the first round lead at the Sybase Big
Apple Classic. Unfortunately, she shot an 80 in the second
round and missed the cut, but the very next week she played
much better, shooting a great first round at the Wendy's tournament
to get on the leaderboard and even get some TV coverage! She
ended up 41st that week.
Minny had to go back to Q-School, despite
her career best season money total of $19,000. But this time
she at last got an exempt card.
2003 was her best season ever. She played
20 events, missing 13 cuts and withdrawing once. However,
she also notched 4 top 40 finishes, two of which saw her play
well enough to make the leader board and get noticed.
SeoulSisters.com interviewed Minny at the
Safeway Classic that year; she seemed confident that her game
was on the upswing. But she still did not make enough money
to guarantee a card, and thus returned to Q-School. Despite
her clear improvement in 2003, she did not play well at Q-School,
missing the cut and thus any kind of card for the first time
since 2000.
But she didn't give up. She entered the 2004
Q-School, and for four rounds was perfectly situated to regain
her exempt status. Alas, in the final round, she had a few
problems, but was still able to gain a non-exempt card. So
she returned to the LPGA tour in 2005. However, she was not
able to get a card for 2006.
Minny made another attempt to qualify for
the tour at the 2006 LPGA Q-School, but failed to make the
four round cut.
Minny eventually left the professional golf
tours, but is still making her living in the golf world in
a novel way. She re-emerged in 2011, in incredible physical
condition, with a book in Korean about golf fitness. She now
makes a nice living helping others learn to achieve the results
she has managed.
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