2006 Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic

What is it with Mi Hyun Kim and the state of Ohio? Back in 2002, Mi Hyun was having one of the best seasons of her LPGA career. She collected two wins that season, and both of them came in Ohio. The first was at the late, lamented Giant Eagle Classic in Youngstown, and the second, two weeks later but the next event Kimmie played, was at the Wendy's Championship for Children in Columbus. She had also managed umpteen good finishes besides those two wins. Coming into this year's Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, which is contested each year in Toledo, Ohio, Kimmie had collected 6 career wins; one third of them were in Ohio.

Of course, when you're talking success in Ohio, you can't ignore Se Ri Pak. Se Ri also won the Giant Eagle Classic once upon a time, during her rookie year. But she has had most of her success in Ohio at the Farr. Indeed, she had won more than three quarters of a million dollars at the Farr during her career, a significant portion of her $8 million total career winnings. When discussing the recent history of this event, you simply cannot ignore Se Ri and her accomplishments there. She won it in 1998 by nine shots, shooting a 10 under par 61 in the process. At the time, that was the lowest 18 hole score in LPGA history. In 1999, she again rewrote the record books, winning the largest playoff in LPGA history to successfully defend her title. The playoff came down to 6 players, but only Se Ri was able to birdie the first playoff hole to win. In 2000, she came within a shot of getting into another playoff, this time with Annika Sorenstam; she finished third. She came back with a vengeance in 2001, winning for the third time and jumping into the country club's swimming pool to celebrate. In 2002, she collected another top ten, then won for an incredible fourth time in 2003, repeating her victory splash in the pool. Once again she set a record; only a small number of players have ever won the same event four times.

After that, her bad slump started, but even though she was struggling at almost every event she attended in the latter half of 2004, when she got to Toledo, she once again was in contention, as though nothing was going wrong. She finished her final round in the lead and looked for all the world set to collect her fifth victory. But Meg Mallon went on a tear in her final few holes, and made a birdie on the last hole to knock Se Ri off and win the title herself. In 2005, her slump had become so bad that even playing her favorite course could not help her; she finished outside of the top ten for the first time since she played the course in 1997 as a sponsor's exemption. But that was then, and in 2006, Se Ri had made a monumental comeback, culminating in her victory at the year's second Major, the LPGA Championship. No doubt she was hankering to get that elusive fifth win at her favorite event. If she could do it, she would join a very exclusive club. Only Annika Sorenstam and Mickey Wright, two of the all time greats, have ever won the same event five times. And there was no doubt that Se Ri was playing well enough this season to do it.

Mention should also be made of another Korean golfer who has had a lot of success in Ohio: Hee-Won Han. Han finished runner up to Kimmie at the 2002 Wendy's Championship; she went on to win it in a playoff the next year. In 2004, she lost another playoff at this same event. She also finished second at the Farr to Se Ri in 2003 (Kimmie finished tied for 4th that year). She may not have as many wins in Ohio as the other Korean stars, but she clearly likes the state all the same.

The 2006 edition of the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic would give all three women another shot at a title. But the field was unusually tough this year. Annika Sorenstam, who had not played the event since 2001, was forced to come this year, owing to an LPGA rule that says that each player must play an event at least once every four years. Juli Inkster was in the field for the same reason. Plus the usual assortment of top Korean, American and European golfers there as well. So if Se Ri, Mi Hyun or Hee-Won were going to collect a trophy, even in their favorite state, they were going to have to work at it.

In the first round, however, none of these Korean stars rose to the top of the leaderboard. Instead, it was Swedish veteran Liselotte Neuman who topped the field with a 6 under par 65 (the course is par 71). The top Korean was Sung Ah Yim, who put together a 5 under par 66 to finish in a tie for second with two other players. But Kimmie and Se Ri both started well nonetheless. Se Ri was paired in the morning with Annika and Paula Creamer. It was getting to be a habit for her to play with Creamer; for some reason, they had played a bunch of rounds together in the past few tournaments, either due to random pairings or due to the fact they were both playing roughly as well as each other. This was clearly the star pairing on the course, and all three women played well on this day. Creamer, surprisingly, had the low round, a 4 under par 67, but Se Ri shot a 68 to put herself in the hunt. Things started out really great for her. She played the back nine first, and collected four birdies there. She really got on a roll starting on the par 5 17th. She birdied that hole and the par 5 18th, then collected two more birdies on one and two. She was hitting a ton of fairways, drilling laserlike irons to within a foot or two of the flag, and in general playing superbly. By this point, she had climbed to 6 under on the day, but then hit a road bump with a double bogey on 3 and a bogey on 4. She would wind up shooting a three under par 68, but it looked for a minute like it could have been much much better.

Kimmie's first round was much less eventful. She made 3 birdies and no bogies, and matched Se Ri's 68. Also scoring a 68 on this day was Christina Kim, who, like Mi Hyun, made three birdies and no bogies. But Hee-Won Han, the third Korean who had had success in Ohio, had a much worse time of it. She had been mired in a mini-slump pretty much ever since she collected her sole win of the year at the Corning Classic. This slump had seen her struggle in the two Majors played during that span, and she had been truly trounced by a far less accomplished player at the HSBC Match Play Championship, a type of golf in which she usually excels. Her woes continued on this day, as she shot a 3 over par 74 and was in danger of missing the cut.

On day two, birdies were appearing all over the course. If you were not shooting at least 2 under, chances are you were going to lose ground on the field. Se Ri got off to a cold start on this day. Starting from the first hole, she made pars on 10 straight holes before finally sinking a birdie on 11. She followed that with a birdie on 13 to move to 5 under total. But then she started struggling again with her putter. At one point she had two straight lip outs. In the end, she did collect a birdie on the final hole to shoot another 68. More significantly, it was her first bogey free round all year, and it put her just three shots out of the lead.

Kimmie's day was more impressive than Se Ri's. For the second straight day, she was hitting a ton of greens and making a fair number of putts. And just like on Thursday, on Friday she had not a single blemish on her card. Her round consisted of five birdies and 13 pars, and her 66 moved her to 8 under total, just a shot out of the lead. She was tied with Paula Creamer, who shot a 4 under par 67 to match the one she had shot on day one. But the leader was American poster girl Natalie Gulbis, whose two day total stood at 9 under par. Gulbis had never won an LPGA event despite knocking on the door numerous times. But with two rounds to go, it was she who was setting the pace.

Among the other Koreans making noise was Sung Ah Yim. Yim shot a two under par 69 to move to 7 under and keep herself in the hunt going into the weekend. Young Jo was at 5 under, tied with Annika, and Jee Young Lee was at 3 under. Hee-Won Han, meanwhile, bounced back nicely from her dismal opening round with a 3 under par 68 that moved her back to even for the tournament and well within the cut line. She wasn't likely to win at this point, but she could certainly come away with a nice finish if she kept that up.

The low scores were all the more amazing considering the horrendous weather conditions the women had struggled with. The pro am was completely washed out due to rain on Wednesday. The rain kept coming, and the small, gentle creeks that lined the course turned into raging rivers. The floods were so bad that some of the bridges over that creek were in danger of washing away. Players had to be transported between holes by golf carts that cut through the flood water like mini boats. And the rain also caused delays of play that forced day two's action to finish on Saturday morning.

But the grounds crew did a superb job preventing the course itself from disappearing under that water, and play was able to limp forward on the weekend. After finishing the second round, the groups were repaired, and the third round commenced (it would not be completed until Sunday morning). And like before, the scoring continued to be great. But for some players, it didn't start out that way. Mi Hyun Kim had put herself right into the thick of things after two rounds, but at the start of the third round, she struggled. She bogied three of her first four holes and was in danger of dropping completely off the map. It was especially surprising considering she had not had a bogey in her first two rounds. But she quickly righted the ship with a birdie on the fifth hole, and would not make another mistake of consequence the rest of the round. Meanwhile, she added a birdie on 9, then reeled off three straight from 11 to 13, and two more on 16 and 17. All in all, she shot a fantastic 4 under par 67 to move to 12 under and a tie for the third round lead. Considering she looked on her way to an over par round after her rough start, her recovery was all the more impressive.