Fairways and Greens

Jimin Jeong wins last Futures Tour event of 2006
Song Hee Kim, In-Bee Park clinch 2007 LPGA Tour cards
The Futures Tour season is over, and the top five players on the money list at the end of the final event earned their LPGA tour cards for 2007. The top three players had all but wrapped up their cards before the final event, the ILoveNY Championship, which was contested in Albany, New York, from September 8 - 10th. But the players from positions four - nine on the money list all had chances to gain cards if they played well that week. At #5 on the list was the youngest player on the Futures Tour in 2006, Angela Park. Park had not won an event in 2006, but had played so well that she sat in good position to capture the final card at this event. But she had only a slim lead over #6, Ashley Prange (the winner of the Golf Channel's Big Break competition), and #7, Alison Fouch. #8 Meghan Francella and #9 Hye Choi could also move into the top five with a great finish at the event.

After two rounds, the player who led was yet another Korean, Jimin Jeong. Jeong had already won an event in 2006, but despite that, she was not high enough on the money list to have a shot at the cards, even if she were to claim this week's trophy. Still, she shot rounds of 66 and 68 to put herself alone in the lead at 8 under. One shot back was Francella, while two more shots behind her were Choi, Fouch and Prange. Amazingly, the only woman in the top ten who had a chance to get a card but was not playing well was Angela Park, who was in 13th at 1 under and would require an amazing run on the final day to maintain her fifth place status. She needed to beat all four of the aforementioned women to do that, though, and she was not able to. On Sunday she shot a devastating 79 to fall well out of the running. But she still finished high enough on the money list to give herself free entrance into the LPGA's Q-School finals. Prange, too, struggled on Sunday and was out of the running. But Choi, Francella and Fouch all still had a shot at the card right up until the final nine holes.

In the end, it was Jimin Jeong who claimed the trophy, with an even par 72 in the final round. By winning, she eliminated Choi from the running for the card; Choi would have needed to win herself in order to beat all the other women who were ahead of her on the money list. Choi did wind up finishing 5th, though, which gave her, like Park, enough money to get a free ride into LPGA Q-School finals.

As it turns out, it was Meaghan Francella who snagged the final card. She was in contention much of the last day, even taking the lead over from Jeong when Jeong made a triple bogey on the 12th hole. At that point, it looked like Jeong was out of the running for the trophy, but she hung in there despite trailing Francella by two shots after 14 holes. Francella then bogied the 15th and 16th holes, and Jeong drained a birdie on 16 to retake the lead. Jeong held on to beat #2 on the money list Charlotte Mayorkas by one shot. It was Jeong's second win of the year. Francella, though, got the last laugh; by finishing third, she secured the fifth and final LPGA tour card., leaping from 8th to 5th on the money list on the last day.

And so, the top five players of the Futures Tour earned their 2007 tour cards. Among them were two Korean golfers. The top player on tour this year, for the third straight year, was a Korean (Jimin Kang won in 2004, and Seon-Hwa Lee, this year's LPGA Rookie of the Year, was #1 in 2005). In 2006, the top player on the Futures Tour was of course this Song Hee Kim, who won five times in 2006, and actually had clinched the top spot and Player of the Year (and Rookie of the Year!) the previous tournament, when she won her fifth title. She was trying to become the first Futures Tour player to win six events in a season in Albany, but never was in contention and finished tied for 16th. She does co-hold the record of most wins in a season with Grace Park. Seeing the kind of career Grace has had, Kim has to be considered one of the front runners for next year's Rookie of the Year on the LPGA tour.

The other Korean to collect a tour card in 2006 was In-Bee Park, who finished third on the money list. Park was not able to win an event in 2006, but her 11 top tens in 17 starts and the second best scoring average in the league made her one of the most consistent players on tour. She also only missed one cut, the very first event she played as a pro. Park was a beneficiary of the rule change that allowed certain qualified 17 year olds to play full time on the Futures Tour. That rule was changed, of course, thanks to Song Hee Kim, who is even younger than In-Bee. The third player to benefit from that change was Angela Park.

And so, another Futures Tour season has ended, and two more strong Korean Rookies are headed to the LPGA tour in 2007. Good luck to them there!

Koreans dominate LPGA Q-School sectionals
Qualification for the LPGA is a multi-step process. If you are a new player trying to get on tour, or a player with no status on tour, you first have to qualify to play in Q-School. Each year, there are two Sectional qualifiers that serve that very purpose. Generally, players who don't qualify through the first Sectional will travel to the second and try to get in that way. The top thirty finishers from each Sectional advance to the final Q-School, where they will compete against LPGA players with conditional status trying to gain full cards, as well as top finishers from the Futures Tour Money list who did not earn exempt cards outright.

The first Sectional took place over four days from September 19-22 on two courses at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California (the same complex that hosts the LPGA's first Major, the Nabisco, every year). The field was chock full of promising Korean and Korean American golfers, and by the end of the week, so was the leaderboard. How dominant were the Koreans here? So dominant that they captured the top five spots on the leaderboard. A sweep like that hasn't been seen since the Safeway Classic last year.

The top finisher was KLPGA player Hyun Hee "Honey" Moon (pictured). Moon is not one of the very top golfers on that tour, but she's a solid top ten golfer, and her performance this week bodes well for the next round. Over four days she shot a total of two under par. In a tie for second were two amateurs, Ji-Young Oh (pictured below) and Seo-Jae Lee. Lee recently participated in the US Women's Amateur, where she advanced a couple of rounds before losing. Oh is more of an enigma, but a fascinating one. She lived in the States this past year, where she played six amateur events on the FCWT - and won every one. In fact, not only did she win, she dominated, with an average winning margin of 7.5 shots. She won the FCWT National Championship, the league's biggest event, by 12 shots. This tour is considered to be the second best tour for young amateurs in the country, so she didn't play a lot of the very top players; but among those she destroyed in various events was Dakoda Dowd, who played the Ginn Clubs Open on a sponsor's exemption earlier this season and is considered a strong young amateur. She beat Dowd by 16 shots at the aforementioned National Championship. Oh also has played on her national team and is a former national champion in Korea. Even though she suffered her first defeat in America at the Sectional (only finishing second, one shot out of the lead!), she is definitely one to watch in the finals and, hopefully, next year on tour!

In a tie for fourth were two more Korean amateurs, IK Kim and Na On Min. It's unclear if IK Kim is In-Kyung Kim, who won last year's US Girl's Junior and has to be considered one of the top Korean amateurs in the world. But if it is, she has to be another player to watch at finals.

Six more Koreans and Korean Americans made it through to finals. The most notable of these were two Korean Americans. Irene Cho, who this year won the college Player of the Year award, finished tied for 8th; and Jane Park, the the former US Women's Amateur champion who starred on this year's Curtis Cup team and who finished tied for 10th at this year's US Women's Open, finished 13th. Another notable qualifier was Jeanne Cho, the Golf Channel's Big Break Runner-up, who moved on to Q-School finals with a +7 total that left her tied for 19th.

Among the Korean stars who failed to advance at this Sectional were Minny Yeo and Soo Young Kim, who once had tour cards and are now struggling to get back on tour, and Sunny Oh, a promising Korean golfer who has not yet lived up to that promise since turning pro a few years ago. They would all be back to try again at the year's second Sectional.

The second sectional took place on the other side of the country at the Florida Plantation Golf & Country Club in Venice, Florida. Once again, the tournament consisted of four rounds of golf, played from October 3 - 6th. Most of the top Korean golfers had made it through the first Sectional, and a few who didn't were back to try again. In addition, there were a few newcomers who didn't play in California. The most significant of these were two KLPGA players who, like Hyun Hee Moon, were solid top ten level on their tour. They are Eun Hee Ji and Hae Jong Kim (pictured). Weirdly, none of the very top KLPGA players elected to try Q-School this year. This is especially surprising for Bo Bae Song, who has played on the KLPGA tour three years now, and been the top player two of those years. Perhaps she feels she still needs more seasoning before she tries her luck in America.

Not surprisingly, Ji and Kim quickly established themselves as among the top players in the field. After the first round, Ji was tied for the lead at 3 under, while Kim was tied for 10th. By the end of the second round, Kim had moved to second all by herself, while Ji had fallen to third. They would struggle a little more in the final two rounds, but both easily finished well enough to advance to the finals. Ji wound up finishing all by herself in 7th place, with Kim one shot behind her in solo 8th.

They were not, however, the top Korean finishers in the field. That honor went to Yeon Joo Lee, a Futures Tour player. She wound up with an even par total that placed her 4th. 5th place was yet another Korean named Kitty Hwang. Kitty has a somewhat unusual history. She was born and raised in Ecuador; her parents immigrated there from Korea before her birth. Kitty is the second Korean-South American to make a recent impact on the amateur ranks. The other is Angela Park, who was born in Brazil but grew up in Los Angeles.

Only one other Korean moved on, and she did it by finishing tied for 30th, the lowest she could have finished and still advanced. That golfer was Minny Yeo, whom readers of this site will remember as having been an interviewee of Seoul Sisters Magazine back in 2003. Here's hoping she can make it back to tour in 2007, and good luck to all the talented young Korean golfers at the Q-School finals, which is played at the end of November!

JJ wins Japan Women's Open
Jeong Jang has already had a great season in 2006, but she may have put the cherry on top recently. The Japan Women's Open is a Major on the Japanese LPGA tour, and perhaps the most important event they play over there all season. This year, the defending champion was none other than Ai Miyazato, the much beloved superstar of Japanese golf, and she was coming into the event on a roll, having won the two events she had played in Japan in the weeks leading up to the Open. But Miyazato had to face down history: no one had repeated as the Open champion in thirty years.

She had another problem to deal with: a certain British Open champion named Jeong Jang, who had been invited (along with Young Kim) to participate in the event. The Open was contested from September 28 - October 1st, and right away, JJ seized control and fought hard to keep it. The weather was by and large terrible, with rains, cold and wind dominating the proceedings. These are precisely the kind of conditions that JJ thrives in. When she won the British Open, she managed an astounding 68 on day one in weather that beat down almost all the top players in the field. She continued to maintain and even extend her lead the remaining three days, claiming that Major in wire to wire fashion by four shots.

The same thing happened in Japan. Try as Miyazato might, she could not seem to catch JJ. On the final day, Jang extended her third round advantage by shooting a 3 under par 69, and walked away with a five shot win. In second was Korean Hyun Ju Shin; Miyazato finished third. This is a huge feather in JJ's cap, and more proof that, when it comes to playing in terrible conditions, few can deal with it as well as she can!

Click here to check out the gallery for more pics of JJ in Japan!!

Amy Yang turns pro
In a year chock full of great stories about the Korean golfers, few have been as resonant as one of the first big successes we reported on this year. This happened back in February, when 16 year old high school student Amy Yang shocked the world by winning the ANZ Ladies Masters. In so doing, she became the youngest woman or man to ever win an event on a Major golf tour (The ANZ is cosponsored by the Ladies European Tour). The win got her into the field at the Evian Masters and the Weetabix Women's British Open. At the latter event, she was the low amateur by several strokes. Without a doubt, Yang was anything but a one hit wonder.

The latest twist to the story was announced this weekend, when Amy told the world that she was turning professional. She will play events on the Ladies European tour, starting with an event in Dubai at the end of October. She intends to finish her high school education, however, so will only be a part time player until she does. The LET agreed to extend her this invitation, even though the now 17 year old Yang is younger than their minimum age limit of 18. Indeed, now that they have removed this limitation, Yang has a three year exemption thanks to her win in Australia.

It will be very interesting to see how she will do. Can she succeed as a part time golfer, while traveling back and forth between Europe and Australia all the time? Will she have success by playing on the LET, a tour that gets considerably less exposure than the LPGA (by making this move, Yang now becomes the first Korean golfer I am aware of to play full time on that tour)? How long will she stay over there before she tries her hand on the LPGA?

It seems like most everyone thinks this will be a good move. It will benefit the LET, who will get attention from Korea they never received before (as well as from Yang's adopted land of Australia). It will give Yang a chance to hone her pro game against strong competition, but not the very best in the world. And it will give her a chance to make quite a bit more money than she'd make were she working at the local Dairy Queen. Her coaches seem to think she has that mix of mental strength, physical power and natural ability that will make her competitive right from the outset. Dubai will be a good test: she will face no less than Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb in that event. Well, she's beaten Webb already, so perhaps she can do it again? Time will tell!

Portrait Gallery
Every year at the two Safeway tournaments, the LPGA takes a series of photos that they then use in their marketing for months thereafter. These photos show a different side to the golfers, a more fun side.

Here's a gallery of some of the photos in this series taken of the Korean stars. Click the photo at left or HERE to visit the gallery!

Money List
The Seoul Sisters slump has, if anything, worsened. They have not won an LPGA tournament since Kimmie beat Natalie Gulbis in a three hole playoff at the Jamie Farr Classic back in July. At least they were still putting a lot of players in the top ten in August and early September, but in the last few events, they have had trouble doing even that. At the Corona Morelia, only one Korean, Young-A Yang, was able to get a top ten. Even Mi Hyun, the most consistent Korean this year, was only able to finish 26th. Kimmie, the top Korean on the money list, is nearly a million dollars behind first place Lorena Ochoa at this point.

The Korean news lately has mostly been about the lesser known players having some success. Hana Kim has made several cuts lately, even amassing her first top twenty. She still has not been able to move into the top 100 on the money list, however, and will have to return to Q-School to gain status on tour in 2007 (she finished 132nd on the money list, outside of the top 125 needed to gain conditional status for 2007). The big mover has been Il Mi Chung, who is on target for her best season yet. Sun Young Yoo and Young-A Yang have also notched great finishes lately. Meanwhile, Jinnie Lee, Grace Park and Soo-Yun Kang all fell out of the top 100, even though Grace returned to action and made some money. For Jinnie, this will mean Q-School, although her finish at least gives her a conditional card for 2007.