Player of the Year

And the Winner Is: Jiyai Shin

Jiyai Shin

This was one of the closest battles for Player of the Year I can remember.  In the end, it came down to three players, all of whom had phenomenal seasons: Jiyai Shin, Hee Kyung Seo and Jennifer Song.  Song was the amateur sensation who became the first woman in more than 20 years, and only second in history, to win the USGA’s top two amateur events.  The historic nature of what she accomplished certainly makes her a candidate for best player of the year, but we should also keep in mind that the caliber of player she was facing was not nearly that of the other two nominees for this award.  Reluctantly, I decided that she would not win the Seoulie.

But why choose Jiyai Shin for the third straight year instead of Hee Kyung Seo, who had a phenomenal year on the KLPGA?  This was a tough choice, made tougher by the fact that Shin did not actually win the Player of the Year like it looked like she would, and Seo nearly swept the four Majors on the KLPGA tour (she did win three of them).  It’s true that Seo was facing week in and week out lesser competition than Shin was, but I’m not merely comparing them apples to apples, but by what they accomplished in their respective spheres.  Seo was hurt somewhat by the fact that Shin herself won all three KLPGA Majors in 2008 (there were four this year) and actually won the fourth event that would become a Major as well, the Hite Cup.  But we need to keep in mind that those two are the only players to ever win three Majors on the KLPGA tour, and Seo’s five wins on tour in a single season is still a very rare accomplishment over there.

Jiyai Shin

Jiyai Shin, meanwhile, was somewhat hurt by the fact that 2009 was, in some ways, her weakest season since 2006, her rookie year as a pro.  She won three times on the LPGA, and had one win in Japan, but did not win a Major, unlike in 2008.  As mentioned before, she failed to win the Player of the Year or the Vare Trophy, although she did lead the money list and won the Rookie of the Year trophy in a rout.  Three wins is still a pretty darn good season, but keep in mind that she won that many times in 2008 on the LPGA tour in just ten starts, and those wins included not only a Major but also the Tour Championship, one of the most important non-Majors on tour.  Compared to her 2008 and 2007 seasons, 2009 definitely seemed a little off.

But then I did a few thought experiments, and realized how unfair I was being to Shin.  Imagine for a moment that Seon Hwa Lee had had a season like Shin’s in 2009.  Lee was the top Korean player on the LPGA last year, but she has never won three times in a single year (indeed, her two wins last year were a first for her).  Nor has she ever finished higher than fifth on the money list, or come anywhere close to winning the Player of the Year or Vare Trophy or leading the money list.  If Lee had done all the things Shin did, would we be giving her the Player of the Year award?  In other words, are we knocking Shin down a little just because she didn’t live up to her own ridiculously high standard?  I think the answer is yes.

Jiyai wins in Rochester

In fact, Jiyai had the best season for a Korean golfer on tour since Grace Park in 2004.  Grace that year finished second on the money list, one behind Shin, and had two wins (but one of those was a Major).  Grace had more top tens and top twos than Jiyai as well.  If Shin’s season matches up well with a great season’s like Grace’s, how can we deny that she was the Best Player in Korean golf this year?

Now, imagine that Shin had made that final chip at the Tour Championship.  One shot.  Now she is the first Korean player to win Player of the Year, as well as the first to lead the money list.  In fact, I have argued here that the difference between her and Ochoa was so ridiculously slight that you may as well consider Shin the Player of the Year, since she had the tougher challenges to face, being younger, new to living in America and a rookie.  Now, would I really deny Shin the Seoulie for Best Player if she had won POY?  If the answer is ‘no’, then I cannot deny it to her now, when I think she earned the award with her play.

Jiyai and Michelle Wie

And even though she did not win the Vare or Player of the Year, she did become the first Korean to lead the money list, a not inconsiderable achievement, as well as earning the most money in a season of any Korean ever. 

The other convincing argument against Shin winning might be to look at the competition she faced.  While Seo was dealing with several top KLPGA stars, including the smoking hot So Yeon Ryu, Shin was facing an LPGA that, for the first time in a decade, did not have a single star dominating.  In all the other years this decade, there was always at least one player, Annika Sorenstam or Lorena Ochoa or even Karrie Webb, who was winning 5 or more events and 2 million or more dollars.  This year, even Ochoa did not manage more than three wins, and captured no Majors.  With Ochoa having her worst season in a while, Shin had a chance to capture the POY even though she did not win five or more times.  Under normal circumstances, Shin would not have come close to clinching that title.

Jiyai takes English lessons at tournaments!

Well, this is all true, of course, but you can’t control the competition you face.  And weaker competition or not, Lorena Ochoa still put a heck of a lot of pressure on Shin the final three months of the year.  It’s true that, in the end, Shin did not win the Player of the Year, but it’s also true that she was in that race right until the bitter end.  She held up to the pressure quite well.  And when you think of all the scenarios that could have given her the POY, the mind reels.  Just as an example, if the final tournament had been one round shorter, Shin is in.  If she had made one more putt any time that week, she wins (she had several lip outs).  If Ochoa had missed one of the two long putts she made at the end of the week, Shin might have won.  Or, had any of the seven golfers that finished ahead of her had a worse final round, Shin would have won.  This is where the ‘weak competition’ angle falls down; Shin may not have had to face a superstar at the top of her game in 2009, but she did have to face a deeper collection of golfers capable of knocking her down the leaderboard, and that proved to be the difference at the Tour Championship.

Jiyai wins in Arkansas

Make no mistake about it: Hee Kyung Seo had a fabulous season.  She actually had one fewer win than in 2008, but there were fewer events on tour to play in 2009.

To summarize once again what Jiyai Shin accomplished.  She had three wins, eight top threes and 12 top tens on the LPGA tour.  She won an additional event on the JLPGA tour.  She had a decent season in the Majors, which included a third place finish at the LPGA Championship.  She became the first Korean to ever lead the LPGA money list, and in the process broke Se Ri Pak’s record for most money earned in a season.  She dominated a tough rookie class which had four other wins (including a Major) to easily win the Rookie of the Year award weeks before the end of the season.  She came within one tap in of winning the Player of the Year award, the first Korean to ever come so close to clinching that title, and finished second in the Vare Trophy standings as well.  And she did all of this while living away from home for the first time, in a country where she was still learning the language and customs, on courses that she was largely unfamiliar with.  And she traveled all over the globe in the process, logging more frequent flier miles than all but a handful of female golfers.  She became only the second Korean to win more than twice in a season; only Se Ri Pak had done that before.  The competition for the top Seoul Sister might have been tougher this year than she had faced in 2008 or 2007, but without question Jiyai Shin still earned the Seoulie for Best Player of the Year for the third straight time.

Peace out, Jiyai! You're the Player of the Year again!

Other Nominees:

 Jennifer Song

Song had one of the most impressive amateur seasons in years.  Among the Korean golfers, perhaps only Grace Park has had a similar type of amateur year, at least in recent memory.  She not only became the second woman to win the US Women’s Amateur and US Amateur Pub Links in the same year, she also was the top amateur at the US Women’s Open and finished second in the NCAA Championship (and only barely lost that event).  That’s on top of her brilliance as a member of the USC golf team.  Great year indeed, but still not quite enough to overcome what Jiyai Shin did in 2009.

Hee Kyung Seo

Hee Kyung Seo emerged from the shadow of Jiyai Shin, and overcame a tough battle with teen sensation So Yeon Ryu, to become the undeniable top player on the KLPGA tour.  She won five times in 2009, including three of the four Majors on tour (while finishing second in the other one).  She shattered the 600 million won mark for season earnings, becoming only the second player to reach that plateau besides Shin.  She led the league in money earned and scoring average, and won the Player of the Year and most wins titles as well.  And she did all this while learning how to salsa dance, and performing for the rest of the tour at the KLPGA Awards show!

Rookie of the Year

And the Winner Is: Jiyai Shin

Jiyai Shin

I’ll admit it, I almost bought the lie.  For much of this year, there has been this steady drumbeat from all sides that Jiyai Shin, for all her accomplishments, is not really an LPGA rookie in 2009.  After all, she already had three wins in 2008, before even joining the tour, right?  How could such a player be compared to some amateur who has just joined the professional ranks?

In my case, I have been reporting about Shin since she turned pro in 2006 and started blowing away records everywhere she went.  She has been the Player of the Year in these SeoulSisters.com awards the past two seasons.  How could I call such a player a rookie?

Of course, such semantics are silly.  Shin is playing for the first time as a full time player on the LPGA tour, and she is facing many of the same issues other rookies face: getting used to traveling all over the States, rookie hours, dealing with pro ams and other obligations.  It’s true that she has three years of pro experience under her belt, but she has played fewer than half as many LPGA events as Michelle Wie did before joining the tour, yet not nearly as many people were questioning Wie’s rookie status.  And if previous professional experience alone were a disqualifier for rookie status, then should I have considered Seon Hwa Lee the Rookie of the Year back in 2006?  After all, by the time she collected that award, Lee had already been playing pro golf for six years, winning multiple events on the Futures Tour and the KLPGA in the process.  If winning before getting to the tour were an issue, why did I not object when Shi Hyun Ahn won the Rookie of the Year award in 2004, the year after she won the CJ 9 Bridges Classic to get membership on the LPGA tour?  And keep in mind that, besides playing a bunch of courses she has never seen before, like (most) rookies, Shin also had to deal with a new language, a new culture, and living away from home for the first time.  And she did all this at the fairly young age of 20.  No, there really is no sense to the argument that Jiyai Shin was not a rookie in 2009.  By the definition of the tour and any other logical definition of the term, a rookie she indeed was.

Jiyai Shin

Once you accept that Shin was a rookie in 2009, there’s no escaping the fact that she was the best rookie this season.  Shin not only crushed the competition in the rookie race on the LPGA tour, she did it with several weeks left in the season.  And that’s despite the fact she faced three other players who won tournaments this year, including one, Anna Nordqvist, who won twice, including a Major. 

As if Jiyai needed any other help in claiming this award, there are few other Korean golfers who were rookies in 2009 that might qualify for this award.  MJ Hur had a very good rookie year which included a win, but she had only two top tens in total.  No other Korean rookie on the LPGA was really in the same ballpark as Shin.  The crop of rookies on the KLPGA was decent, but gathered not a single win between them (compared to 2008, where four rookies won events).  The JLPGA’s top rookie was Bo Bae Song, but though she had a great season, it pales compared to what Jiyai accomplished.

I have a feeling we may be hearing from Jiyai Shin again in these awards, so we’ll leave it at that for now.

Jiyai Shin

Other Nominees:

Bo Bae Song

BB Song won the JLPGA’s Rookie of the Year award in 2009, even though she had played on the tour since 2007 and had already carded a win (last year).  No, I’m not sure how she qualifies to be a rookie, either, but if I understand correctly, the JLPGA does not count you a rookie simply because it’s the first year you have membership on tour.  You actually have to play some minimum number of events that year to be a rookie.  This is actually a rule the LPGA might consider adopting, being that so many non-exempt rookies play next to no events on tour their rookie year (this killed Amy Yang last year).  But if you think the LPGA’s current way of judging who is a rookie is controversial, just think how doing it the Japanese way would go down with the press!

In any event, this apparently was BB’s first official year, and she won the tour’s Rookie trophy thanks to her two impressive wins on tour in 2009.  First she collected the Japan Women’s Open, her first Major victory, then followed that up not long afterwards with a win at the joint JLPGA-LPGA event, the Mizuno Classic.  That’s an impressive twofer no matter who you are, rookie or seasoned veteran.  Congrats to her!

Most Improved Player

And the winner Is: So Yeon Ryu

We’ve already talked a bit about So Yeon Ryu in these awards.  She won an award for Best Streak of the Year and Best One on One confrontation, and was one of our Best Teen performers in 2009 as well.  Not only that, but she was the KLPGA’s Most Popular Player in 2009, as voted by the fans!  To cap off a stellar year for Ryu, we will now present her with the Seoulie for Most Improved Player of 2009.

So Yeon Ryu

It’s not as though Ryu was having a bad career before this season.  She had already established herself as one of the top amateurs in the country by her mid teens.  A frequent representative of Korea on the national team, Ryu was most famous before turning pro for winning the gold medal at the Asian Games in 2006.  But she played umpteen other amateur tournaments all over the world, and collected a lot of individual and team honors in the process.

Her rookie year on the KLPGA in 2008 was certainly a strong one.  She played her events while finishing her senior year of high school, winning once and grabbing two other second place finishes, including a runner up to Jiyai Shin at the Korean Women’s Open, where she lost in a playoff.  But she was denied the Rookie of the Year award on tour by her arch rival He Yong Choi, who also had a win and several other top five finishes in 2008.  Ryu finished 6^th on the money list in 2008.

Ryu worked with top Australian coach Ian Triggs in the off season, and impressed him so much he went on record to say he expected her to soon be one of the ten best women’s golfers in the world.  Ryu showed a flash of what was to come when she finished second at the ANZ Ladies Masters in Australia in February, beating Hee Kyung Seo and Jiyai Shin, the top two KLPGA golfers from 2008, among many others.

So Yeon takes aim

Hee Kyung Seo dominated the early part of the 2009 KLPGA season, but Ryu’s win at the Doosan Match Play Championship in May changed everything, not only for the season, but arguably for Ryu’s career.  Without question, nobody worked harder in 2009 to get a victory than Ryu did at that tournament.  Match play is tough anyway; you have to be on your game pretty much the entire week, as even one bad stretch of holes can be enough to cost you the tournament.  In Ryu’s case, she had several tough matches on her way to the finals, and was forced into three sudden death playoffs on the way.  All of that toughened her and prepared her for the final match against her rival He Yong Choi.  This match in was an epic in itself, lasting nine extra holes and more than 7 hours in total.  Handling all of that pressure all week paid off for Ryu, though, and she finally wrapped up the title with a birdie on the ninth playoff hole for her second career victory.

From that moment, Ryu caught fire in a major way.  She was understandably tired at the next event on the schedule, yet still finished third.  After that, she won the next three events on tour.  Though she would not win another event on the 2009 schedule (she did lose the penultimate event of the year in a playoff, however), Ryu’s four wins for a time made her, not Seo, the top player on tour.  Eventually Seo retook the lead and won all the major awards on tour, but without question, Ryu is now the second best player on the KLPGA tour, a quantum leap from her results in 2008.

So Yeon vs. Hee Kyung: Rivals

Ryu finished the calendar year in style, with another win, this time at the event that officially started the 2010 KLPGA season.  That event was the Orient China Ladies Open, and for much of the week, the leader was none other than Hee Kyung Seo.  But Ryu was lurking just a few shots back, and in the final round, she outplayed the KLPGA’s top gun to force a playoff.  After three holes, Ryu emerged with the win.  So not only did she improve massively this season from last, she also beat both of her chief rivals, He Yong Choi and Seo, in playoffs this year.

So Yeon wins in China

So Yeon Ryu plans to work with Triggs again this off season, and no doubt wants to become the new top gun on the KLPGA tour.  Hee Kyung Seo will not be able to rest for a minute.  Should be a gas!

Other Nominee:

Jung Eun Lee 5

Jung Eun Lee

Jung Eun Lee was one of the faces in the crowd on the KLPGA tour until this season, when she established herself as a force to be reckoned with.  She captured two wins total, including a victory at the Shinsegae KLPGA Championship, the year’s second Major.  This win was important, because it denied Hee Kyung Seo the calendar year Grand Slam (Seo put pressure on Lee all day, but Lee held on and Seo finished second).  Lee wound up fourth on the KLPGA money list.  At the 2010 China Open, she continued her strong play, contending for the title and eventually finishing tied for third.

Weirdest Moment

And the Winner Is: Ji Hee Lee injured during victory celebration at Kyoraku Cup. 

We’ve all seen this tradition many times: a team wins the big game, and they get together to toss the captain/coach/MVP in the air to celebrate.  Must happen a few dozen times every day all over the world.  But how often have you seen that little celebration go wrong?

Ji Hee Lee is tossed by her team at the end of the Kyoraku Cup

Ji Hee Lee was the Captain of the victorious Korean squad at this year’s Kyoraku Cup.  After Korea won, her team grabbed her and tossed her in the air in that typical ceremonial way.  But unfortunately, they did not catch her in the prescribed manner, and she fell to the ground and injured herself. 

At first, everything seemed fine.  But during a team photo, she suddenly became dizzy, and it suddenly became apparent that all was not well. 

Ji Hee Lee felt ill during this team photo

She was taken to the hospital for tests, and there was some worry that she would have serious injuries that might even affect her career.  But fortunately, as of this writing, it seems like she will be fine.  Next time Korea wins the Cup, I hope they decide to soak the captain in champagne instead!

Other Nominees:

Amy Yang fire at Evian.  

See ‘Happiest News’ for details.

Best Hot Streak

And the Winner Is: So Yeon Ryu wins three straight on the KLPGA tour

So Yeon Ryu in June

2009 was a fantastic breakout season for teenage star So Yeon Ryu.  Without any question, the highlight of that year came when she strung together three straight wins on the Korean LPGA tour, and looked to become one of the few players in history to win four straight.  Though she fell short in that attempt, she still became one of less than half a dozen in history to accomplish three straight wins.

Her great play actually started at the Doosan Match Play Championship, where she secured her second career win by beating her arch-rival He Yong Choi in a fast-becoming-legendary 7 hour match.  But that took so much out of her that her next week was a bit less impressive, and she only finished third, four shots behind the winner.  However, Ryu got her second wind at the very next event after that, where she started her streak.

That event was the Woori Securities Ladies Championship, contested in early June.  Ryu managed to get a share of the lead after two rounds, but the co-leader, Aram Cho, was not able to do much right on day three.  After just four holes, Ryu had a three shot lead, and she went on to an easy 4 shot win.

So Yeon wins at the Woori

Two weeks later came the next event on tour, the S-OIL Championship.  Interestingly, the leader after two rounds was Ryu’s old nemesis Choi.  On Sunday, Choi was not playing well, but despite that still had the lead going into the back nine.  Ryu seemed to be an afterthought, as she had started that day eight shots behind Choi.  But by the time she reached the turn, that lead had been reduced to three.  Then she really turned on the gas, making a birdie on 11 and three more starting at hole 13.  She got to 7 under total, taking the lead away from Choi for the first time all week.  Ryu finished about an hour before Choi, then had to wait to see if her rival could catch her.  But Choi couldn’t, and thanks to a final round 65, Ryu had her third win in four starts and second straight.

Ryu's second straight win at the S-OIL

At that point, the KLPGA ceased for two months to take its summer vacation.  The next event would not take place until mid-August, but Ryu picked up right where she left off.  The event was the High One Resort Cup SBS Charity Women’s Open.  The field was packed with LPGA stars, so Ryu would have her hands full if she were going to win her third straight.  After two rounds, a bunch of top stars were within a shot or two of the lead, including Ryu and her top rival for KLPGA Player of the Year, Hee Kyung Seo.  As the tournament wound down, however, the two players with the best chance to win became Ryu and longtime veteran Il Mi Chung.  Ryu bogied the 16^th, but made a clutch birdie to finish the week at 10 under.  Chung needed to play well to take the trophy, but a bogey on the 17^th hole knocked her out of her share of the lead, and Ryu had her third straight victory.

So Yeon won her third straight despite an injured finger

So Yeon finally ran out of gas in her next event, the Nefs Masterpiece.  She did finish 14^th, but 12 shots out of the lead.  But her three straight wins was an incredible achievement nonetheless, and announced her as the newest superstar in the Korean golf world.

Other Nominees:

Hee Kyung Seo wins back to back Majors

Hee Kyung Seo was the leading candidate for Player of the Year early in the season, but after So Yeon Ryu won four of five events, Seo found herself playing catch up to the 19 year old star.  Seo managed to reassert control by winning two straight Majors late in the season, the Hite Cup and the KB Star Tour Grand Finale.  We’ll be talking more about Hee Kyung’s season a little later!!

It’s About Time Award

And the Winner Is: Commissioner Bivens given the boot

This column is not the place to rehash the entire sad history of what the Carolyn Bivens reign of error did to the LPGA tour.  But it is important to note that the tour has lost a bunch of tournaments in the past couple of years, has found itself with less media attention than ever, and for the first time I can remember, has even generated talk that it might cease to exist entirely.  It is certainly true that some of these problems were beyond Bivens’ control.  For instance, there is no way she could have predicted the huge economic downturn of late 2008, and no doubt that downturn would have killed at least a few events no matter who was in charge.  But Bivens seemed to make everything worse, sometimes disastrously so.  Things were heading south so quickly by the summer that the players did something unprecedented: they banded together and demanded Bivens be tossed out.  Thankfully as far as the tour is concerned, the powers that be listened, and Bivens was gone soon thereafter.

There are a bunch of reasons to be happy that new people are in charge.  Among her many mistakes were: her tendency to favor the flashy sponsor with big bucks over the longtime sponsors that had supported the tour for years.  Remember when she gave the prime spot on the schedule long held by the ShopRite Classic to newcomer Bobby Ginn, who was trying to start a second tournament called the Ginn Tribute?  ShopRite ended up not sponsoring an event, and Ginn’s two events ended a couple of years later when he went bankrupt following the real estate bust.   Bivens also had this grand idea to nab the LPGA a long term television contract, and lined up all the tour’s events to be up for renegotiation at the same time to accommodate this.  Bad move: when the economy tanked, a lot of tournaments suddenly found it harder to make ends meet.  Bivens refused to budge, even in the face of this, continuing to play hard ball by demanding the same purse levels she had expected before the downturn.  As a result, long time tournaments like the Corning Classic disappeared.

Why was Bivens so sure she could get that kind of money for the LPGA in the first place?  The rumor I’ve heard is that she was banking on Michelle Wie, who was set to join the tour full time, as the enticement for sponsors to pay up.  Betting your future on the mercurial Wie, whose lack of enthusiasm for women’s golf has been long established (she once said she would get ‘bored’ if she only played women’s golf all her life) is another sign that Bivens was not on the ball.

For fans of the Korean golfers, of course, Bivens’ worst mistake came last year.  Like so many before her, she decided that the influx of Korean golfers, especially those who were not fluent in English, was a dire threat to the league, so she prepared to implement a new policy requiring all golfers to be reasonably proficient in English a set time after they joined the tour.  Those failing to pass some sort of test to that effect risked losing their playing privileges on tour.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this rule was not aimed at the Swedes.  As usual with Bivens, when the controversy erupted, she first made one of her lieutenants answer all the questions (an employee who has since been fired due to the financial situation Bivens helped create).  Then, when she finally started fielding media queries, she defiantly defended the rule, despite umpteen objections.  When several civil rights groups threatened to protest, however, she finally caved in and abandoned it.  To my knowledge, she never apologized for the flap.  With a supreme sense of karmic justice, I can report that the week Bivens was given the axe, the player who won was none other than Eun Hee Ji, a Korean, who gave her entire press conference in Korean.  Interestingly, Ji was reportedly also the winner the week Bivens finally decided to implement the English only policy.  Ironic indeed.

Eun Hee Ji lets the Korean flag fly at the US Women's Open

In any event, I believe the players acted in the nick of time.  Almost immediately after Bivens’ departure, several tournaments returned from the near dead and reupped with the LPGA.  True, some of them did it with greatly decreased purses, but that is certainly better than if they died entirely, yes?  Among the tournaments that will return in 2010 is the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, the event Se Ri Pak has won five times, and which has also been won by Koreans Mi Hyun Kim and Eunjung Yi (the defending champion).  The tour also added an event in San Diego and saw the return of tournaments sponsored by ShopRite (remember them?  The sponsor that Bivens tossed aside for the Ginn event?) and HSBC.  Yes, other events have disappeared, notably the Samsung Championship and the event in Phoenix (Phoenix was on life support the past few years, but Samsung was a bit of a shock).  But all in all, the Bivens ouster was a very positive move for the tour.

Other Nominees: In Kyung Kim named Evian Ambassador

Every year, Evian, sponsor of one of the top events on tour, announces a player to be the ambassador for the tournament for the next year.  Usually, the winner is a causasian lady, but they have been known to give the title to a Korean or two (both Mi Hyun Kim and Grace Park have been given this honor, if I’m not mistaken). 

This year, the Evian Ambassador for 2010 was In Kyung Kim.  Choosing her was significant, for it was the first time one of the Se Ri Kids, that group of young Koreans who have invaded the LPGA in the past three years, has been named to a post like this.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the press Kim got from this inspired the sponsors of the Dubai Ladies Masters, another event on the LET, to award her a sponsor’s exemption to that event this past December.  And she made it pay, too: she won it for her first victory on that tour!

In Kyung Kim in November

Na Yeon wins Kolon, first Korean win in three years;

Na Yeon Choi has been the most consistent Korean, and possibly most consistent player, on the LPGA the past few years, but a victory had eluded her.  No more!  Her win in Korea at the Kolon Hana Bank Championship was her second in as many months.  But it also was the first time since 2006 that a Korean golfer took that prize.  Two years ago, Suzann Pettersen became the first non-Korean to win the event when the third round was canceled due to high winds.  Last year, the winner was Taiwanese player Candie Kung.

Korea takes Kyoraku Cup, first Korean win in four years.

It’s amazing to think that Korea, the team that dominated the Kyoraku Cup early in this decade, had not won the thing in several years.  OK, there was a draw and a sudden death playoff in there, and the event was canceled entirely due to weather last year.  But still, with their depth of talent, and the fact that the Japanese were rarely sending all their top players, Korea should have won at least once or twice in that span.  They made up for that in 2009, though, with a commanding win in Okinawa, capturing the Cup 31-17.

Rookie to Watch in 2010

And the Winner Is:  Good Question!

Every year, SeoulSisters.com picks a rookie in the upcoming class that we think has some promise to be a standout in the coming year.  We try not to pick the obvious choice, but someone who is a little more obscure.  In 2008, the rookie we chose to highlight was MJ Hur.  I wrote the following:

“(S)he still put herself into contention a lot (on the Futures Tour), and that bodes well for her future on the LPGA.  She will still be a very young golfer next year as a rookie, just 19, but if she can figure out how to hold herself together when she gets in contention, she could make a bit of noise in 2009. “

Hur certainly did make some noise, winning at the Safeway Classic and making $445,022 in 2009.  Sometimes I get them right after all!

MJ Hur

But in looking at the rookie class on the LPGA in 2010, I have to admit the pickings are slim.  The best possible rookie would have been Bo Bae Song.  Song won the Mizuno Classic in 2009 to earn membership on tour, but it looks like she turned that down to remain in Japan.  So, with BB not on tour, who is left?

Possibly the strongest Korean golfer coming onto tour next year is Misun Cho.  I could see her doing decently, but in all likelihood she will have a steep learning curve next year.  Il Hee Lee earned membership on the tour at Q-School, but she was only a second or third tier KLPGA player, and those players have not typically done that well when they move onto the LPGA.

So, with no Korean rookies standing out on tour in 2010, I looked to the JLPGA instead, and have chosen as my player to watch Sun Ju Ahn.  One fallout from the Carolyn Bivens years has been a greatly reduced schedule for the LPGA.    This in turn has caused several Korean mainstays of the LPGA tour to seek membership this season on other tours, notably the Japanese LPGA.  Among those who have qualified to play in Japan next year are US Women’s Open champion Inbee Park, tour winners Young Kim and Seon Hwa Lee, and KLPGA star Sun Ju Ahn.  In the case of the LPGA players, it is most likely that they will only play in Japan when the LPGA does not have a competing event, so they may not play enough to be even considered true rookies (or to rank highly in the year end money lists on that tour).  But Sun Ju Ahn will likely concentrate on playing the JLPGA, and she is one of the strongest players from the KLPGA the last few years.  Although she did not amass the same kind of win totals as Hee Kyung Seo or Jiyai Shin, she still was the type of player who contended often.  This year, she led the tour in scoring average much of the season, and was also the longest driver on tour.  Factors like that lead me to believe she will quickly establish herself as one of the premiere players in Japan.

Sun Ju Ahn

Now I’m going to cheat a little…  There are two Korean American players on the Futures Tour who for all intents and purposes can be considered rookies in 2010, even though they both played some events over there in past years.  One of them is Tiffany Joh.  The Korean American was a college standout, winning the US Amateur Pub Links twice (the second time, she beat none other than Jennifer Song, this year’s champ, to do it).  She was not able to qualify for the LPGA in 2010, but she did make it onto the Futures Tour; in fact, she won Q School.  It would surprise me in the extreme if she is not a big factor on that tour in 2010.

The other player of interest is Hannah Yun (not to be confused with sometime LPGA member Hannah Jun).  Yun is interesting because of her youth: as a fifteen year old, she started attending the University of Florida, where she played on their golf team.  She did well, too, earning awards as the team’s Most Valuable Player and a spot on the all-SEC first team.  Despite that, she decided to leave the school at the start of her sophomore year.  Still too young to turn pro, Yun played as an amateur on the Futures Tour in 2008, and would have been 57^th on the tour in ranking had her earnings counted.  Yun played on the Futures Tour again in 2009, this time as a pro after she turned 17 in April.  So technically, she is far from a rookie going into the 2010 season, but it would be her first whole season as a pro on that tour.

Best New Young Player

And the Winner Is: No one!

This year, there were several new players who had minor accomplishments on the various tours.  Soo Jin Yang and Shin Ae Ahn, for instance, are two young rookies who played well on the KLPGA.  However, neither of them had a win in 2009 or even came close to playing as well as the Rookies of the Year from the past few seasons (He Yong Choi, Ha Neul Kim and Jiyai Shin).  MJ Hur and Eunjung Yi were relatively obscure before their wins this season on the LPGA, but Hur had done well on the Futures Tour in 2008, and Yi had won the Women’s Amateur Pub Links in 2005.  Perhaps a player to watch was Jung Min Lee, who won the Polo Junior title for Girls in her first appearance at an amateur event in America.  But really, compared to past years, no young player really burst onto the scene in 2009, so for this year I will leave this award unawarded.

Best Teen

And the Winner Is: Jennifer Song

Jennifer Song with her Pub Links Trophy

In 2009, Jennifer Song had one of the greatest amateur seasons of recent years.  The 19 year old Freshman at USC had a fantastic first year in college, where she earned All American First Team status.  Among her impressive accomplishments was finishing second at the NCAA Championship and five other top three finishes.  In June, she made it all the way to the finals at the US Women’s Amateur Pub Links.  Song had previously finished second in this event to Tiffany Joh, but this time she went all the way, trouncing teenage Korean American prodigy Kimberly Kim 7 & 6 in the final.

Later that summer, she was the low amateur at the US Women’s Open, finishing tied for 13^th.  But her season entered the stratosphere when she won the US Women’s Amateur in August, beating Jennifer Johnson in 35 holes.  Song became only the second woman in history, after Korean American Pearl Sinn in 1988, to win both the Women’s Amateur and Women’s Pub Links in the same year.  Song was not even alive when Sinn had turned that trick.

Other Nominees:

So Yeon Ryu

So Yeon Ryu

It was a tough choice between Ryu and Song for the best teen, but the historic nature of what Song accomplished in 2009 allowed her to edge out Ryu in the end.  But make no mistake about it, Ryu was incredibly impressive in her own right this year.  She was 18 years old to start the year, coming off a pretty strong KLPGA rookie campaign where she won once and finished second twice while simultaneously attending her final year of high school.  Ryu worked with top Australian coach Ian Triggs in the off season, and impressed him so much he went on record to say he expected her to soon be one of the ten best women’s golfers in the world.  Ryu proved she had that potential when she finished second at the ANZ Ladies Masters in Australia in February, beating some top flight talent including Hee Kyung Seo and Jiyai Shin, the top two KLPGA golfers from 2008.

So Yeon Ryu in Australia

When the 2009 KLPGA season started in earnest, it looked like Hee Kyung Seo, the golfer who had won six times in the latter half of the previous year, would be the runaway Player of the Year, especially after she won the year’s first Major, the Korean Women’s Open.  But Ryu really kicked her game into gear with a win at the Doosan Match Play Championship in May.  That win had taken so long to achieve that she was pretty exhausted at the next event, yet still finished third.  After that, she ripped off three more straight wins, and suddenly Seo was no longer the top player on tour, Ryu was.

The two golfers battled for the rest of the season, with Seo eventually getting the best of Ryu.  But Ryu still achieved four wins and nearly 600 million won in earnings, a fantastic feat for the now 19 year old.  To close the year, she played in the first event of the 2010 season in China, the Orient China Ladies Open, and won there as well, beating Seo in a playoff.  With five total wins in 2009, Ryu had a season that was just a smidge less impressive than that of Jennifer Song while playing against superior competition.

So Yeon Ryu with one of her five trophies in 2009

Michelle Wie

The Hawaiian star didn’t have her first LPGA win until after her 20th birthday, but she still had a very successful year going before that, including several second place finishes.

MJ Hur

Hur had a solid year on the LPGA tour.  The 19 year old rookie scored her first career win at the Safeway Classic and made over $400,000 on tour.

Ha Na Jang

Ha Na Jang

The 17 year old amateur Ha Na Jang had some brilliant results in 2009, both playing as an amateur and against professional competition.  She had her best result in amateur golf in July when she won the Junior World Golf Championship at Torrey Pines golf course by six strokes.  Later in the year, she played two professional events in Korea and made a huge mark there.  They were both Majors, and she was in contention to win both of them.  At the Hite Cup, the year’s third Major, Jang was tied for the lead after one round, and established the clubhouse lead on Sunday at three under, then had to wait to see if it would be enough for her to win.  In the end it was not, as KLPGA superstar Hee Kyung Seo ran away with the title, with LPGA superstar Na Yeon Choi edging Jang for second.  But Hana still came up with a solo third in the Major, a fantastic achievement.

Just a week later, at the year’s fourth Major, Jang surpassed even her previous great finish.  The tournament was the KB Star Tour Grand Finale.  This time, she established the lead in round one, hung on for the next two rounds, and found herself duking it out with Seo on Sunday with the Major on the line.  Seo took the lead on the back nine, but Jang hung in there, and when Seo missed a par save on the 16^th hole, they were tied for the lead.  But Seo immediately birdied the 17^th hole and would go on to squeak out the one shot win over Jang.  Two Majors, two top threes (and Jang beat So Yeon Ryu, mentioned above, in both of them).  It’s hard to do much better than that as an amateur!

Kim Kim

Kimberly Kim, the Korean American star originally from Hawaii, was still a 17 year old junior this year, and thus played in all three of the Major USGA women’s amateur events.  She did not do that well at the US Women’s Amateur, but she made it all the way to the finals in the other two, the US Girls Junior and the US Women’s Amateur Pub Links.  Unfortunately for Kim Squared, she was trounced in both final matches, losing to Korean Jennifer Song in the Pub Links.  Nonetheless, making the finals of two important events like those in one year is a pretty impressive feat.

Happiest News

And the Winner Is: Kimmie is a mommy! 

Mi Hyun Kim

Mi Hyun Kim married her sweetheart, Won Hee Lee, the gold medalist judo champion from the Athens Olympics, at the end of last year.  It didn’t take them long to start a family!  In early 2009, they announced that Kimmie was pregnant with their first child.  She played on tour until early summer, then stopped playing to have the baby.  In November, they had a bouncing young baby boy.  Congratulations to the couple, and here’s hoping we’ll be seeing more of Peanut and Peanut Jr. soon on tour!

Other Nominees:

Amy Yang escapes serious injury from fire at Evian

There was a seriously scary moment at this year’s Evian Masters.  Several players and their families were staying at a small hotel not far from the course.  At 10 PM, a fire broke out, and the building filled with smoke.  Among the players still in the building were Amy Yang and Catriona Matthew.  Fortunately, everyone escaped with at worst minor injuries.

Amy was staying on the second floor with her father when there were strange popping noises in the hall.  Her dad was awake and heard this and went to investigate.  By then, there was already too much smoke for them to go out through the hallways.  Amy’s dad threw a mattress out the window, and the two jumped moments later, landing on the mattress to break their falls.  Amy’s father singed the hair on his arm, but Amy was unhurt and was able to play the event without trouble.

Most Touching Moment

And the Winner Is: Shin gives great Rookie of the Year acceptance speech

Jiyai Shin faced one of the toughest rookie classes in some time; three of her fellow rookies accumulated four wins, including a Major, between them.  Despite this fact, Shin easily won the Rookie of the Year in 2009, and came close to claiming the Player of the Year as well.

Jiyai Shin with Louise Suggs and her Rookie of the Year award

At the final event of the year, Shin’s Rookie award was one of the few that was not still in doubt.  She gave a wonderful acceptance speech in English, thanking the founders of the tour for all they did to make the LPGA possible.  She dedicated the award to her late mother, who was killed in a car crash in 2003, and talked about how the insurance money from her mother’s death was at least partially used to help her continue her golf career.  She credited her dad for all she has achieved.  And perhaps admitting that she was far from a glamor girl, she wrapped up with this wonderful passage:

“Some of us play for quiet, shy girls with little glasses who have a song in their hearts.  To those girls I say, ‘Do not be afraid. Dream big.’ “

What a classy addition to the LPGA tour Jiyai Shin has been!

Other Nominees:

Americans douse Shin after winning P&G

Jiyai wins in Arkansas

Angela Stanford’s Solheim team members were eagerly waiting by the green to douse her in champagne should she win the playoff at the P & G Northwest Arkansas Championship.  When Jiyai Shin won instead, the players graciously went out and gave Shin a champagne bath instead.  That’s what you call a nice gesture!

Se Ri congrats In Kyung Kim after State Farm

Se Ri Pak has not won an event in more than 2 years, but she came achingly close to doing so at this year’s State Farm Classic.  However, In Kyung Kim ripped off two clutch birdies late to take the trophy by a stroke.  Se Ri, who had not really talked with Kim before, graciously visited her in the scoring tent to offer her congratulations to the young and doubtless awed star.

Jeong Jang meets vets again

Jeong Jang has been injured much of 2009, and her presence has been missed.  But she made sure to come back from her wrist operation in time to play at the Wegman’s LPGA in Rochester.  It was at this event in 2006 that she started a relationship with a group of American Korean War vets that has quietly continued year after year.  Each year, she visits a Korean War shrine in Rochester to commemorate the anniversary of the start of the Korean War, meeting with a group of American vets there.  Afterwards, she presents them with a check to help them maintain the shrine.  This year, ESPN, who was covering the event, presented a story about this annual ritual, and it was a touching as ever.

Best Victory Celebration

And the Winner Is: MJ Hur, Safeway Classic

Mi Jung Hur

Korean golfers have a tradition on tour, where they make sure to give every Korean winner a bath in beer or champagne after they win.  When MJ Hur sunk her winning putt at this year’s Safeway Classic, she could see her pal Haeji Kang coming at her with a beer to give her that ritual bath.  Hur wasn’t about to get wet, though, and took off down the fairway to avoid her friend.  Kang gave chase while the watching crowd laughed and cheered.  Kang eventually caught her and gave her a good drenching.

Other Nominees:

Stanford’s American pals soak Shin after Shin beats Stanford at P & G

See ‘Most Touching Moment’ for details.

Favorite Photo Op

And the Winner Is: Koreans at Ronald McDonald House

One of the knocks about the Korean golfers is that they do not give back to charities in America.  But this is far from true.  In fact, the Koreans had been looking for an American charity they could directly support to show their gratitude for their opportunities in the US.  At this year’s Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic in Toledo, Ohio, Se Ri Pak suggested that the Sisters should adopt the local Ronald McDonald House, one of the charities that benefits from the tournament.  She went around recruiting golfers to help, and managed to get thirty of them to come with her to the house.  Once there, they did chores to help keep the house clean and operational. 

Jiyai Shin, Ji Young Oh and Eun Hee Ji lend a hand

The whole lot of them later posed for a wacky picture with Ronald McDonald himself. 

The Sisters at the Ronald McDonald House

 

Then the players made a special donation of more than $13,000 to the House.  The photos of so many of the Korean stars, both young and old, working together on this charity project were both fun and moving.

Se Ri and friends present a check to Ronald McDonald House

 

Other Nominees:

Shin serenades home owner

During the Michelob Ultra Open in May, several LPGA golfers worked to help build a house for the charity Habitat for Humanity.  Among them were Koreans Hee Young Park and Jiyai Shin.  Shin even gave the home owner-to-be a special treat: she sang a verse of her hit single ‘Don’t Say Goodbye’ during a break in the work.  Don’t think I’ve ever seen Phil Michelson do that!

Jiyai Shin sings!

Several golfers participated in a kimchi making demo before Hana Bank

Not just Korean golfers but also Westerners got a chance to make some kimchi before this year’s Korean stop on the LPGA tour.

Kimchi demo

Golfers donate hair to women who have cancer

Chella Choi gives up her hair for a good cause

Before this year’s P & G Beauty Northwest Arkansas Championship, a group of tour golfers agreed to get their hair cut for charity.  The hair was donated to make wigs for women who have lost their hair due to cancer.  Among the Sisters who participated were Koreans Jee Hae Lee and Chella Choi and Korean Americans Christina Kim and Vicky Hurst.  Despite losing 8 inches of hair each, the ladies seemed to take it rather well!

Jiyai and Lorena share the POY trophy at award show… sort of

Lorena and Jiyai with the Player of the Year trophy

Normally, the awards for the season are given out during the final event of the LPGA season.  But this year, both the Vare Trophy for low scoring average and Player of the Year were still up in the air when the event happened.  So Lorena Ochoa and Jiyai Shin, the only two players with a reasonable shot of being Player of the Year, posed for a photo where they shared the trophy.  OK, Lorena held it and Jiyai touched it, but that’s sharing, isn’t it?

Favorite Tradition

And the Winner Is: KLPGA golfers doing dance numbers for KLPGA Awards Show

I couldn’t let this Seoulie Awards go by without having a little entertainment, could I?  The KLPGA has had a fun tradition the last two years of having their top golfers participate in a dance number at their annual Awards Show.  Last year there was one number, but it went over so well, this year they had two of them.  The first number featured five of the teenage up and coming stars on tour doing a version of the number ‘Mister’ from the K-Pop group Kara.  The second number was a salsa dance featuring four KLPGA stars: Hee Kyung Seo, So Yeon Ryu, Bo Mi Lee and Ji Na Lim.  I for one am looking forward to how they will top this in 2010!

The Kara number

The salsa number

Most Controversial Moment

And the winner Is: Ji Young Oh, round 2, Nabisco

Ji Young Oh

In the afternoon of round 2 at the year’s first Major, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the conditions were so windy that the golf course was nigh unplayable.  Yet incredibly, the officials refused to stop play.  Anyone caught up in that maelstrom was essentially removed from contention thanks to that bonehead decision. 

One of the players who suffered the worst was Ji Young Oh.  Ji Young had reached the 18^th green and was well in contention at that point, but before she could mark her ball, the wind blew it from its resting place.  It started rolling, eventually ending up in the water.  She was penalized a stroke as a result.  To make matters even worse, when she tried to argue with the official, before she could even say a word, the guy rudely cut her off, saying that he ‘didn’t want to hear any arguments’.  Then, in the worst blow of all, his ruling as to where she should replace her ball was incorrect.  Ji Young wound up shooting a second round 78.  All in all, it was a severely bush league series of decisions, especially considering it happened in a Major. 

Other Nominees:

Michelle Wie stiffs sponsor in pro-am at LotteMart

Every year, we have Michelle Wie to thank for adding another worthy nominee to this category.  She may not have won the Seoulie this year, but her accomplishment was still a doozy.

Michelle Wie and 'friends' in Korea

Wie was invited to participate in this year’s KLPGA Lotte Mart Open.  She was given a hefty appearance fee, as you can imagine.  But rumors began to fly that she was expecting, on top of this, quite a bit of special treatment.  For one thing, she asked to be allowed to have her caddie accompany her during the pro-am.  This is against KLPGA rules, so she was refused.  (The KLPGA reasoning: when they used to allow caddies to accompany players during pro-ams, the players would spend too much time talking to the caddies and ignoring their amateur partners).  Seemingly in response, she bowed out of the pro am entirely, despite the fact she was to play with the CEO of Lotte Mart, the company responsible for inviting her to the event (and giving her the appearance fee) in the first place!  Ouch!

Later on, some more details leaked out.  Apparently, the CEO was considering allowing Wie’s caddie to come along, in flagrant violation of the rules, by allowing him to play in the pro-am grouping as one of the amateurs (!).  Fortunately, that idea was scotched.  Then, they simply removed her from the list of eligible players for the pro-am; if they had not done so, her skipping the pro-am would have required a disqualification.

Michelle Wie at the Lotte Mart

In the end, Wie played terribly, flirting with missing the cut before she rallied to finish tied for 36^th.  The winner of the tournament was Hee Kyung Seo, Wie’s playing partner in round one.

Gwladys Nocera is docked two strokes at LET’s China event

Nocera is not a Korean golfer, and this infraction did not occur at a Korean tour event, but because the winner of the event, Bo Mi Suh, was a Korean, we are including this here. 

The controversy happened at the LET’s Suzhou Taihu Ladies Open in China.  Top LET star Gwladys Nocera showed up late for her tee time and was docked two penalty strokes.  She stewed the entire round, blaming her two playing partners for calling the infraction on her.  In fact, one of them did do that, and freely confessed, but the other player was an innocent victim of Nocera’s surliness.  Nocera wound up losing the event by one shot to Bo Mi Suh; in other words, the two stroke penalty cost her the trophy.  I’m guessing she won’t be late for a tee time again!

Sarah Oh, LG/Bing NSW Open

Sarah Oh is an up and coming Korean golfer.  At the LG/Bing New South Wales Open, Oh was called for two rules infractions, both by the caddie of one of her playing partners.  Neither was accepted by officials in the end.  Oh went on to win the tournament, but if either infraction had been accepted, she would have lost.

 Biggest Diss

And The Winner Is: Commissioner Carolyn Bivens offends SBS at season opener

Carolyn Bivens had a frankly disastrous run as the Commissioner of the LPGA tour.  One of her most offensive moves happened at the start of this season.  The season opener was the SBS Open, sponsored by Korean television network SBS, who had also been the LPGA’s broadcasting partner in Korea the past several years.  Bivens thought she could get a better deal, however, and negotiated a new agreement with Korean cable Golf channel JGolf.  It’s true that the deal paid a little better than the SBS deal, but it’s also true that JGolf does not have nearly the reach that a major network like SBS has.  How much this will affect the popularity of the LPGA in Korea remains to be seen.

What really pushed this move to the front of this list, however, was how Bivens acted at the tournament itself.  She proudly crowed about the deal when she should have been working to preserve the feelings of SBS.  The CEO of SBS was so annoyed with the way she had handled the negotiations and her behavior in Hawaii that they not only dropped sponsorship of the SBS Open, they immediately signed on to sponsor a PGA event instead.  There will be no Hawaiian LPGA event in 2010; just last year, there were three.

Other Nominees:

The media still has it in for the Korean golfers

Like the rain falling from the sky or the sun setting in the West, if a Korean wins a women’s golf tournament on the LPGA, you can count on some idiot writing an article saying how results like that would lead to the ruination of the tour.  This has been an ongoing problem for years, but we can’t help but mention it in this category year after year.  The best thing to do here is to point out the idiocy of these comments.  OF COURSE the Koreans are not ruining the tour.  This year, the LPGA struggled with a terrible economy and a commissioner who hadn’t the slightest idea of how to sell her tour.  It’s not surprise the tour lost tournaments in that environment.  Interestingly, after Bivens was ousted, Koreans kept winning, but the tour suddenly took an upturn, with several tournaments either being added to the schedule or being re-signed for another year or more.  If it were truly the Koreans that were the problem, wouldn’t the downturn have continued regardless of who was running the ship?

Then, of course, there is all the money the Korean television deal brings in to the tour.  The LPGA itself has admitted that there are several companies interested in sponsoring events in Asia and Korea, even American companies.  And American companies have signed to be sponsors of Korean golfers, realizing the benefit they will get in Asian markets from advertising with these ladies.  As I write this, Dow Chemical has announced just such a deal with Jiyai Shin, and another American company called Enprecis signed a deal in December with Il Mi Chung.

The Koreans have also provided some of the most exciting moments of the year for true golf fans.  Jiyai Shin’s unbelievable run at history, falling short at the last hole of the last tournament of the year, was the most exciting Player of the Year race I can remember.  Her win at the P & G Championship had the makings of a classic, with her, Sun Young Yoo and Angela Stanford all coming up with brilliant shots in the playoff before Shin prevailed.  In Kyung Kim, Na Yeon Choi, Eunjung Yi and MJ Hur all pulled out great last minute victories as well.  Eun Hee Ji gave us a putt for the ages to win the US Women’s Open.

Perhaps the most offensive argument of all is the one several of these articles make that Korean golfers simply cannot appeal to American fans.  This is demonstrably untrue, but many of these articles say it as though it is an indisputable fact (without providing a lick of evidence, natch), which gives you some idea where the writers are really coming from.

So the next time you read one of these articles, please do take it with a gigantic grain of salt before using the newspaper to toilet train your doggie!

Jan Stephenson Still Doesn’t Get It

According to Jan Stephenson, American fans would not be able to embrace a player like Hee Kyung Seo

Jan Stephenson seemed to have a change of heart about her infamous comments of several years ago, when she claimed that Asian players were ruining the LPGA tour.  She has apologized in the press, claiming she never meant what she said to be racial in any way.  Uh, OK, maybe there is some way to misinterpret her use of the word ‘Asian’ as not being racial.  Anyway, I guess that means she thinks she was wrong to say what she did?  Guess again! 

The LPGA has a Legends Tour where older women golfers compete for prizes.  Naturally, the majority (all?) of these players are American or Caucasian.  At one of this year’s events, a reporter asked the players to comment about the recent troubles the LPGA has struggled through.  They were all sad about it, naturally.  But several of them took a shot at the tour, claiming that the Senior tour will benefit because American fans can ‘relate’ to the players on that tour more than those on the big tour.  Among those with such an opinion was noted fan magnet Nancy Scranton, who apparently thinks fans would rather see her than a superstar like Jiyai Shin or Na Yeon Choi.

Naturally, one of the players who could not keep her big mouth shut was Stephenson.  When talking to the reporter, she said of her 2003 anti-Asian comments, “I was in trouble then, but now everybody comes up and pats me on the back and says ‘you saw it coming,’ ” She added, “I was just trying to help. It just came out badly.”  I see; so apparently she is not as apologetic about the comments as she led us to believe, huh?

Anyway, I can only hope this is the last time we have to hear from this increasingly irrelevant individual.

Clutch Performance of the Year

And the Winner Is: Jennifer Song, US Women’s Amateur

Jennifer Song

 In some ways, you could say that Jennifer Song’s entire 2009 season was clutch (and who knows, we might just get back to that later…).  But in particular, she had a lot riding on winning the 2009 US Women’s Amateur, even beyond the fact that it was one of the top tournaments, if not the very top event, in all of women’s amateur golf.  She had already won the US Women’s Pub Links earlier in the season; if she could win the Amateur as well, she would become only the second woman in history to win both events in the same year. 

It would not be easy, as you can imagine, but Song relentlessly worked her way through the field, making it to the finals.  There she met a player named Jennifer Johnson, who had managed to make it all the way to the finals without once trailing in any match.  If Song were going to win their 36 hole match, she would have to change that statistic.

Jennifer Song at the Women's Amateur

Johnson continued her excellent play in the morning 18 holes, carving a four up lead after just ten holes.  But Song’s dad, who was also acting as her caddie, gave her encouragement to keep her in the match.  He kept telling her that she would win, she just needed to stay positive.  Song won the 11^th and 12^th holes, and eventually squared the match on the 18^th hole.

In the afternoon, Song finally ended Johnson’s streak by birdieing the 19^th and 20^th holes to go 2 up.  When Johnson bogied the 27^th hole, Song’s lead was three.

But just when it looked like Song had things in the bag, Johnson rallied.  She won three of the next four holes and once again, the match was all square.  Song showed just how clutch she is by winning the 33^rd hole with a birdie, then draining a 6 foot birdie on the 34^th hole to go two up.  Johnson failed to get up and down on the next hole, and the championship was Song’s.

Jennifer Song with her Women's Amateur trophy

Jennifer Song will stay an amateur for the near term, so watch carefully in 2010 to see if she can continue her great play!

Other Nominees:

Ji Young Oh wins her second tournament at Sybase;

Ji Young Oh’s first win involved a little bit of luck; Michelle Wie, you may recall, was disqualified when she failed to sign her scorecard, and Ya Ni Tseng made some mistakes that gave Oh the win.  Oh had also battled with her nerves much of that day.  What a difference a year makes!  At this year’s Sybase, Oh was confident, playing brilliantly while all her foes made mistakes.  She wound up claiming a four shot win.

Na Yeon Choi rallies after losing seven shot lead in Samsung

Na Yeon Choi looked like she would finally get her first LPGA win easily at this year’s Samsung Championship; at one point on the back nine on Sunday, she had a 7 shot lead.  But Ai Miyazato rallied, Choi made a few mistakes, and the lead quickly evaporated.  Choi was forced to make several clutch par saves down the stretch to stay in it.  Now one shot in the lead, Miyazato hit her second shot into the water on the 18^th hole, giving Choi another chance.  She took it, hitting her own second shot just short of the green, then sinking a five foot birdie putt for the win.

Shin hunts down leaders at HSBC to get first official win

Jiyai Shin at the HSBC

After three rounds at the HSBC Ladies Champions, it did not seem like Jiyai Shin would be in the hunt for the title.  She found herself 6 shots back of the leaders.  She did have an impressive 66 on Saturday, but that did little to lessen the distance between herself and the leader Catherine Hull and top American star Angela Stanford, who was second.

But on Sunday, Shin started with four straight birdies to immediately close the gap to a few shots.  Hull regrouped, increasing the lead to four, but on the back nine started to make mistakes while Shin kept on pounding her.  Shin hit the flag on 17 and narrowly missed birdie, and Hull made birdie to close back to within one shot.  It was not over yet.

No worries.  Shin cruised on the 18^th hole, while Hull hit her drive into the woods, ending her chances of beating Jiyai.

Best Stretch of Holes

And The Winner Is: Eun Hee Ji’s back nine at the Women’s Open

No stretch of holes in 2009 was more clutch than the final 8 holes Ji played at the US Women’s Open.  To come back from a double bogey that could have destroyed her, and make a 20 foot birdie on the final hole to win outright, was a brilliant achievement.  Along the way she had two other impressive birdies.

Other Nominees:

In Kyung Kim, round 2, Michelob Ultra (63)

Eunjung Yi, third round, Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic (61).

Jiyai Shin, first four holes final round at HSBC Ladies Champions

Most Dominating Performance

And the Winner Is: Hee Kyung Seo in Majors

Hee Kyung Seo wins her third Major of 2009

Hee Kyung Seo had a tough act to follow when she tried to become the top player on the KLPGA in 2009.  Jiyai Shin had won 9 events on tour in 2007, and swept all three Majors in 2008.  But Seo proved to be just as tough as Shin in the end.  In 2009, there were now four Majors on the KLPGA, and Seo was a big factor in every one of them.  She came from behind at the year’s first Major, the Korean Women’s Open, shooting a scintillating 66 to catch and pass Bo Mi Lee for the win.  She was not able to take down Jung Eun Lee at the second Major, the Shinsegae KLPGA Championship, although she did claim second place there.  But at the third Major, the Hite Cup, she outlasted her friend Ran Hong in the final round to capture an easy 5 shot win, and in the year’s fourth Major, she outdueled tough amateur Hana Jang in a tense battle that went all the way to the final hole.  In all, Seo had three wins and one second place in four Majors.  One thing is for sure.  The next time a KLPGA player sees Seo on a leader board in a Major, she is going to be very afraid indeed!

Other Nominees:

Jiyai Shin at Wegman’s

Jiyai Shin with her Wegman's trophy

Jiyai Shin had three wins on the LPGA tour in 2009, but by far her most dominating victory came at the Wegman’s LPGA event in Rochester.  Before the event started, she saw the trophy sitting in its case, and jokingly told it she would see it on Sunday.  She started with a bang, shooting a 65, then took the lead in round two.  In round three she kept up the assault, shooting a 67 to take a four shot lead.  The final round was academic.  Although she only shot a 71, she increased her lead, finishing with a seven shot drubbing of the field for her second win of the year and fifth of her short LPGA career.

Most Fashionable

And the Winner Is: Hee Kyung Seo

Hee Kyung Seo is called ‘the Supermodel of the Fairways’ not only for her looks, but for her style.  Check out a few of the cool outfits she wore this year on the course.

Hee Kyung Seo at the year's final Major

Hee Kyung at the Hite Cup

Hee Kyung at the Korean Women's Open

Hee Kyung Seo

Hee Kyung Seo

Other Nominees:

Hee Young Park

Hee Young Park had a great season on the LPGA tour, and she also stood out in the fashion sweepstakes as well.  Here are a couple of examples:

Hee Young Park at the HSBC Masters - the all Korean Girl

Hee Young Park at the US Women's Open

More from the US Open

Shin Ae Ahn

Shin Ae Ahn not only won the KLPGA’s Rookie of the Year award this season, she also made a big splash with her fashion sense.  Here are a couple of examples:

Shin Ae Ahn - the high knee socks is an 'in' look

Nice sleeves

Best Team Event Moment

And the Winner Is: Korea Dominates first round of Kyoraku Cup

The Korean Kyoraku Cup team after round one

The Kyoraku Cup is the annual grudge match that pits the top Korean women golfers against the top Japanese women golfers.  The last few years, there has been one draw, one cancellation due to weather, and one matchup that went into sudden death, with the Japanese women coming out on top.  The Korean squad was anxious to finally get the cup back for the first time in several years.

That would seem to have been difficult, however.  The Japanese ladies sent one of their best squads in years, highlighted by Ai Miyazato, who hadn’t played in the event since 2004.  Miyazato was not only having the best year of her career in 2009, she also would be playing in front of her hometown crowd in Okinawa.  The Koreans had a strong squad, too, featuring superstars like Jiyai Shin and Hee Kyung Seo.  But they were somewhat lacking in the experience department.  Shin had only won one match in four tries in her previous appearances; Eun Hee Ji and Na Yeon Choi, two other top Koreans, had also struggled in the past few years.  None of the four representatives from the KLPGA, including Seo and So Yeon Ryu, had ever hit so much as a single shot in the event before this year.  Would the Koreans be able to stop a top Japanese squad on their home soil with these limitations?

Jiyai Shin and Ai Miyazato

As it turned out, the Korean squad did better than anyone would have expected, especially in round one.  On that first day, they won a startling 10 of the 12 matches played; only KLPGAer Bo Mi Lee and JLPGAer Eun Ah Lim, both rookies at the event, failed to win their matches.  Among the most impressive victories were achieved by Eun Hee Ji, who took down Miyazato (read on!), and Bo Bae Song, who had not done well in this event in the past, but who won both her matches handily and would go on to claim the MVP award.

Other Nominees:

Hee Kyung Seo takes down Sakura Yokomine, Day One, Kyoraku Cup

Hee Kyung Seo and Sakura Yokomine

The most compelling matchup on day one of the Kyoraku Cup pitted Sakura Yokomine, the top player on the JLPGA with six wins in 2009, against Hee Kyung Seo, the KLPGA’s top gun, who had won five events in 2009 including three of four tour Majors.  What a baptism of fire for Seo, who had never played in the event before, to go against a player who had gained a reputation over the years for taking down the Korean golfers.  But Seo was brilliant, shooting a 68 to best Yokomine by two strokes.  Seo would win her second day match as well, further burnishing her reputation as the best Korean golfer not playing on the LPGA tour.

Eun Hee Ji beats Miyazato, round 1, Kyoraku Cup;

Eun Hee Ji at the Kyoraku Cup

Perhaps the toughest assignment on day one of the Kyoraku Cup went to Eun Hee Ji, who had to face favorite daughter of Okinawa (where the tournament was played) and top Japanese player Ai Miyazato.  Ji had won the US Women’s Open in July, but since then had not even been able to notch a single top ten.  Miyazato, meanwhile, had been on a roll; she was third on the LPGA’s 2009 money list, had won her first LPGA event at the Evian Masters and had been in contention almost every week since then.

But in the end it was Ji who came out on top, beating Miyazato 70-72, in the process quelling a possible Japanese rally following the early Korean success of day one.  It was the first point Ji had ever earned in this competition.

Best Playoff

And the Winner Is: So Yeon Ryu beats He Yong Choi in nine extra holes at the Doosan Match Play

See ‘Best Korean Confrontation’ for more details about this epic match.

Other Nominees:

Shin beats Sun Young Yoo and Angela Stanford at the P & G by making two straight birdies

MJ Hur beats Suzann Pettersen and Michelle Redman in two holes at Safeway Classic

Shot of the Year

And the Winner Is: Eun Hee Ji makes 20 foot birdie on final hole of US Women’s Open

Eun Hee Ji wins the US Women's Open

The story of this shot is not just the final putt, which was truly amazing in and of itself, but the way Ji played on the entire back nine on Sunday.  Tied for the lead when she got to the tenth hole, Ji made a mess of things there.  She hit her second shot into a bunker, duffed her third shot into another bunker, and missed a short bogey save for double bogey.  A similar adventure had killed Paula Creamer’s chances to win on Saturday, but Ji proved more resilient.  She made birdie on 13 with a great approach to a few feet, then drilled another lengthy putt for another birdie on 14.  When Candie Kung made a late bogey to fall to one over, a tie with Ji, Eun Hee now was in a position to possibly win the tournament outright.  On the 18^th hole, she left herself a 20 foot putt for birdie to win it all.  Going for it was a bit of a risk; if she hit it too far, she might make it impossible to make the comeback par that would get her into a playoff with Kung.  Nonetheless, Ji went for it all the way and hit the perfect putt. It followed the break like a laser, dropping into the hole for the amazing comeback victory.

Other Nominees:

 Ji Young Oh makes a hole in one on day one of the Sybase

Ji Young Oh makes a hole in one at the Sybase

After Ji Young Oh made the aforementioned hole in one, she became convinced that she was destined to win the tournament.  And she played like it, maintaining her cool despite pressure from others, going two under on the front nine on the final day and making pars most of the back nine to collect a four stroke win over Suzann Pettersen.

Kyeong Bae makes a hole in one at the KLPGA Championship

Bae was one of the LPGA stars invited to play in this year’s KLPGA Championship.  She made the most of it, draining a hole in one during the week to win a BMW 750i.  The car was worth 180,000,000 won ($154,000); the winner of the tournament, meanwhile, won only 60,000,000 won!

Most Dramatic Hole

And the Winner Is: Final hole, US Women’s Open

See ‘Shot of the Year’ for more details!

Other nominees:

18^th Hole, P & G Beauty NW Arkansas Classic

See ‘Best Korean Confrontation’ for more details!

16^th hole, Sunday, at final Michelob Ultra

This hole was dramatic for all the wrong reasons!  Coming into this hole on Sunday, both Song Hee Kim and In Kyung Kim were well in position to win this lucrative event.  But both players made crucial mistakes here that killed their chances to win and handed the tournament to Cristie Kerr. 

In Kyung Kim

Song Hee pulled her approach shot; perhaps she was being too aggressive on this tough hole and paid the price.  She then hit a lousy chip over the green and two putted for double bogey.  In Kyung, her playing partner, took three shots to get on the green, but missed a makeable par save to drop back.  When Kerr made a birdie a hole back moments later, she took the lead for good.

Best Breakthrough

And the Winner Is: Na Yeon Choi wins twice

Ever since she joined the LPGA in 2008, Na Yeon Choi has been one of the most consistent golfers on the LPGA tour.  In her first season, she racked up 9 top tens and 18 top 20s, and made over a million dollars during the year.  Despite the fact her biggest rookie challenger, Ya Ni Tseng from Taiwan, had won a Major that year, it still took Tseng until the final tournament of the year before she finally clinched the Rookie of the Year award, and Choi had in fact led that race much of the season.  She did not miss a single cut, and had no finish worse than 43^rd.

Na Yeon Choi

Despite this great record, Choi did in fact fail to win in her rookie season.  She did have her chances, though, culminating in a great performance at the Evian Masters which saw her take a four shot lead on the back nine on the final day.  But she was not able to hang on and Helen Alfredsson wound up winning the title in a playoff.

It looked like history would repeat itself in 2009.  Once again, Choi made every cut, collected 11 top tens, and was in the top 20 17 times.  But once again, that first LPGA win seemed to stay tantalizingly out of reach.

Finally, everything changed at the Samsung World Championship in October.  Choi played brilliantly for three days, then seized control of the tournament on the back nine, amassing a seven shot lead at one point.  But amazingly, she once again saw that lead dwindle, despite making several clutch par saves along the way.  With one hole to go, Ai Miyazato had wrestled the lead away from Choi, and now had her own one shot lead over the Korean.  But this time, luck was on Choi’s side, and Miyazato hit her second shot approach on the par 5 18^th into the water hazard.  This gave Choi a chance to win the event outright if she could make birdie on that hole.  Faced with her own dicey approach, she hit it to just in front of the green, but her third shot was not good, and she left it about four feet short.  With everything on the line, however, she came through, nailing the birdie putt to finally claim her first career LPGA win.

Na Yeon Choi wins a Rolex for her first career LPGA victory

Choi would not have to wait long to find the winner’s circle a second time.  Just a few weeks later, she was again in the hunt, this time at the Hana Bank Kolon Championship in her home country of South Korea.  With a few holes to go, she was right in the thick of the battle with none other than her former rookie rival, and good friend, Ya Ni Tseng, as well as long hitting Swede Maria Hjorth.  This time, Hjorth hit it into the water on the final hole, but Tseng reached the green of the 18^th in 2 and made birdie.  Choi got to in front of the green in two, but needed just a birdie to beat Tseng.  Once again, she delivered in the clutch, hitting her chip to inches for a tap in birdie and the one shot win.  Her second win made her only the fourth player to manage multiple wins on tour in 2009, and her money total left her 6^th on the money list.  It looks like Na Yeon may have arrived at last!

Na Yeon Choi with her second trophy of 2009

Other Nominees:

Bo Bae Song

BB Song was the KLPGA’s top player in 2004 and 2005, but she somewhat faded from the spotlight in 2006, when Jiyai Shin took over the league.  Song went to Japan to play, but injuries and other issues prevented her from finishing full seasons in 2007 and 2008.  Thus, her official rookie year on that tour was not until this year, and if people had forgotten the former teen prodigy, she was quick to remind everyone what she was capable of!  She would go on to win the JLPGA’s Rookie of the Year award, one of the few Koreans to be so honored.  She did this thanks to two wins, both very important.  The first came at the Japan Women’s Open in early October, one of the JLPGA’s most important Majors.  She followed that up just a month later by winning the Mizuno Classic, the only event co-sanctioned by the LPGA and JLPGA.  That win gained Song membership on the LPGA for 2010, although it looks like she has decided to refuse that and remain on the Japanese tour.  At the Mizuno, BB collected a three shot win over a field that included some of the LPGA’s top players, including Lorena Ochoa and Jiyai Shin.

Bo Bae Song

As if that weren’t enough, Song concluded her year by winning both her matches at the Kyoraku Cup, the annual tournament that pits the best of the Japanese women against the top Korean women golfers.  She also won the pivotal match that clinched the cup for Korea, and was named the MVP of the tournament.  Without any doubt, Song will be on everyone’s radar from now on!

Michelle Wie

The Hawaiian prodigy finally got her first win in any tournament, professional or amateur, since she was 13 years old when she won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in November.  Whether this will be a breakthrough or an isolated success remains to be seen, but she did follow it with a second place finish at the Dubai Masters, an LET event, in December, so the signs are good.

Great Performance that came up short

And the Winner is: Soo-Yun Kang at the Corning Classic

In the early part of this decade, Soo-Yun Kang was without question the best Korean woman golfer not playing on the LPGA.  She was frequently one of the very top players on the KLPGA in the years after Se Ri Pak and Mi Hyun Kim left.  When she finally came over to the LPGA tour, it looked like just a matter of time before she brought that success over here.  But in fact she did not play that well for her first few seasons in America.  Her breakthrough finally came in 2005, when she won the Safeway Classic and notched several other top finishes.  At last, the Fashion Model of the Fairways seemed ready to stake her claim as one of the top Koreans on the LPGA.

But the next few years saw Kang struggle mightily.  In 2006 she only finished 94^th on the money list, and did even worse in 2007, finishing 132^nd.  She got a tad better in 2008 but still was not able to collect even a single top ten.  Part of the problem was injuries: she had a recurring, nagging neck problem that made playing the game tough.  But even when she was feeling fine, she found herself struggling to make cuts, and basically stopped contending.  The 2009 season didn’t go much better for Soo Yun, at least at first.  But then came the final edition of the Corning Classic.  This event has been a good one for Korean golfers over the year, and in 2009, it was Kang’s turn to shine.  Soo Yun opened with a sterling 7 under par 65, and matched that with another one in round 3.  Thus she found herself tied for the lead with Japanese rookie Mika Miyazato at 17 under par.  But there was still one round to go; could she get her first win in four years?

Soo Yun Kang

Things looked great at first.  She made early birdies on holes 2 and 5, then drained a 30 foot birdie on 9 to move to 20 under and the lead.  After that, things got very interesting.  She made bogey on 10, rebounded with a birdie on 12, then just missed another at 13.  Meanwhile, Paula Creamer rallied elsewhere on the course, nailing a long birdie putt on the final hole to move to 20 under in the clubhouse.  Kang knew she would have to finish at least at that level to have any chance to win.

Kang continued to save pars, seemingly by the skin of her teeth.  She finally nailed an approach on the 16^th hole to 4 feet and rolled in the birdie to move to 21 under, but just then Ya Ni Tseng also made a birdie to climb to that score.  On the par 5 17^th, her drive rolled into the trees, and after she punched out, she had to settle for par.  Still, she was tied for the lead with one hole to go.  All she would need was par for the playoff or birdie for the win.

On 18, her approach shot left her 60 feet from the hole.  Her first putt went a few feet past the hole, but Kang made the mistake of not watching the break as the ball went by.  As a result, she missed her short par save, handing the tournament to Tseng. 

How did Kangsy miss that putt???

It took four years for Kang to get back into the hunt for a win, she led much of the week, then a short putt cost her the trophy.  Surely, it was a heartbreaker, but Kang was still happy with her best finish in several years.  Hopefully she will be able to build herself back into a player who can contend regularly again.

Other Nominees:

Hee Young Park in Thailand

What a weird week Hee Young Park had in Thailand at the LPGA’s annual visit to that country, the Honda LPGA Thailand.  Park got extremely ill on the first day of the tournament and struggled to even stay in the tournament.  Somehow she finished her round, but shot a 79 that left her second from last in the standings.  That night, she went to the hospital, where the doctors hooked her up to an IV for several hours.

Hee Young Park in the hospital following round one in Thailand

Amazingly, she not only stayed in the tournament, but shot the best round of the day in round two, a masterful eight under par 64.  She followed that with a 69, then on the final day, zoomed up the leaderboard with a 65, a round almost as good as her round two performance.   In just three rounds, she had gone from second to last to second place.  Alas, she was not able to top Lorena Ochoa, who won the tournament, but it was nonetheless a fantastic comeback from about as bad a start as you could imagine.

Hee Young Park recovered to finish second

Grace Park at MasterCard

Grace Park was once upon a time one of the very best young Korean golfers on tour.  Indeed, in 2004 she was not only the top Korean on the LPGA, but also the second best golfer, period, finishing behind only Annika Sorenstam.   But since the 2005 season, Grace has struggled with severe back problems, and as a result, she has not even notched a top ten since October of that year, let alone a win.  But Grace fans everywhere keep hoping that she will get her injuries under control and will once again become the great golfer she was.

Grace finally had a chance to get that elusive top ten, and perhaps more, at the MasterCard Classic in Mexico.  After two rounds, Grace was tied for 7^th, three shots out of the lead (another Korean veteran looking for a win, Se Ri Pak, was one shot ahead of her.  It was 2004 all over again!).  Grace played well early in her final round, moving to 5 under, but carded three double bogies in her next four holes to fall to one over par.  That looked like it for Grace and her top ten, but she immediately made two birdies after that to move back to one under.  She finished her round at that score, but as it turned out, that was one shot worse than she needed to get that top ten; she finished 12^th.  Shortly after that, injuries got the best of Grace again, and she missed most of the rest of the season.

Grace Park

Cinderella of the Year

And the Winner Is: Eunjung Yi

When Eunjung Yi won the Jamie Farr Classic this year, more than a few people were probably wondering who she was.  Even fans of Korean women golfers don’t know much about this player.  She certainly was one of the more obscure Korean golfers before the win, but earned a little notoriety thanks to not only her win, but the fact she shot a 61 during the tournament, one of the lowest scores ever accomplished by a Korean golfer (the lowest is still the 60 shot by Sarah Lee in Tucson a few years ago, while Se Ri Pak, Grace Park and Hee-Won Han have also managed 61s in the past).

Eun Jung Yi

Eunjung Yi was still known as Eun Jung Lee when she won the US Women’s Amateur Pub Links in 2005.  She seemed like another very promising young Korean golfer, but this was her only major win as an amateur.  Still, she was young and had plenty of time to make a splash, either as an amateur or a pro.  She turned pro in 2006 and played for a couple seasons on the Futures Tour.  She finally qualified for the LPGA in 2008 when she finished 25^th at Q-School to earn non-exempt status.  In 2008 she made nine cuts, her best finish a tie for 11^th.  This allowed her to keep the same relatively low status she had on tour for 2009.

Until the Farr tournament, her most notable achievement in 2009 came at the Corning Classic.  She became only the fifth player in LPGA history to card three eagles in a single round when she eagled the first, second and fifth holes (in fact, she had three eagles in five holes, a pretty astonishing feat right there!).  But her best finish of the year before Farr was a tie for 18^th, and she had missed half her cuts to that point in the year.

Eunjung Yi

Something about the Toledo, Ohio event seemed to strike a chord with Yi, however.  She opened her week with a 66 followed by a 68 to put herself in a tie for 7^th, just three shots out of the lead.  If she were nervous about being in contention, it didn’t show, for her third round was the aforementioned 61.  In that round she had eight birdies and an eagle when she holed out from the fairway on a par 4 (the Farr course is a par 71, so she was 10 under for the day).  By the end of Saturday she was four shots ahead of her nearest chaser.

Her competitors would not make it easy for her to claim the title.  She made two early birdies to move to 20 under and seemed in firm control, but did not have another birdie the rest of the day.  After a bogey on 16, she found herself battling nerves and Morgan Pressel, who had a birdie and eagle late in her round to finish her day at 18 under.  Yi was not able to birdie either of the final par 5 holes, and was thus forced into a playoff with Pressel for the title.  It’s hard enough to be in your first playoff, but imagine it’s against a fan favorite like Pressel, and you can picture the pressure Yi was under.  But amazingly, despite her earlier struggles, Yi played like a champ.  She hit a fantastic birdie putt on the first playoff hole, walking towards the hole as though she knew it was going in all the way.  She certainly would have looked stupid if she had missed, but in fact, the ball dropped perfectly into the cup, and the win was hers.  And Yi’s Cinderella story was complete!

Eunjung wins!

Other Nominees:

Ji Na Lim

Ji Na Lim has been a dependable golfer on the KLPGA tour for a while now, but definitely a notch below the top talents on that tour.  So when she found herself in a battle with So Yeon Ryu, Hee Kyung Seo, Sun Ju Ahn and Ha Neul Kim, four of the top players on tour, at this year’s LG Electronics Ladies Open, most people were expecting one of those established stars to claim the trophy.  But Ryu struggled to a 76 and was not a factor, and Seo made three straight bogies on the back nine to also fall out of contention.  Lim, meanwhile, moved to 7 under on the front nine, a three shot cushion, and was able to hold off Ahn and Kim, cruising to a fantastic six shot victory by the end of the day.

Ji Na Lim

Bo Mi Lee

Bo Mi Lee was another solid KLPGA golfer who had yet to win on tour.  She came close at the Korean Women’s Open this year, only to fall to Hee Kyung Seo in the end.  But at the Nefs Masterpiece, it was her chance to shine.  She was tied with Inbee Park, former US Women’s Open champ, entering the final round, and both wound up tied after regulation.  Finally on the second playoff hole, Lee saved par while Park struggled, and Lee claimed her first career win.  She not only had beaten all the KLPGA’s top stars and Park, but a star studded field that included Vicky Hurst, Kyeong Bae, Song Hee Kim and Ji Young Oh.

Bo Mi Lee

Heartbreaker of the Year

And the Winner Is: Jiyai Shin loses the Player of the Year

Amazing as it may seem considering how well Korean golfers have done on the LPGA tour, coming into 2009, no Korean had ever led the money list or won Player of the Year, not even Se Ri Pak (who did finish second three times) or Grace Park (who finished second once).  Jiyai Shin was a rookie in 2009, and though she was primarily focused on winning the Rookie of the Year award (which she did easily), she was also in a position to do something only one other golfer had ever done on tour, win all four major year ending awards: the money list title, Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year and the Vare Trophy for low scoring average.

With about two months left in the season, Shin looked on track to do just that.  There were a few golfers who were challenging her closely, but none of them seemed able to make a decisive move to close in on her.  The scoring average seemed like it was going to be the toughest for her to claim, but as the season got closer to the end, she moved closer to the top in that category, too.

Interestingly, one of the players who seemed pretty much out of the race back in September was the player who had won three of those awards the previous three seasons: Lorena Ochoa.  The Mexican star just had not been playing to her usual level all summer, and had not really contended in any of the Majors in 2009.  But Shin fell ill at the CVS Pharmacy Challenge in October and was forced to drop out of that and the next event.  Ochoa took advantage, finishing second at the CVS and winning the next event, the Navistar Classic.  In just two weeks, Ochoa had made up more than 40 points on Shin in the Player of the Year standings, and now was close enough to make a run at the awards again.

Ji Yai and Lorena wrestle over the Player of the Year trophy

Shin was still in the lead in money made and Player of the Year standings with four events to go.  One of the events was in Korea, one in Japan (which Shin had won in the past), but the final two events were the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, played on the course Ochoa grew up playing (!), and the Tour Championship in Houston, just a stone’s throw from the Mexican border.  Shin would probably be favored in the first two, but Ochoa would have the advantage in the final two.  It was imperative that Shin build up her lead before the tour got to Mexico.

Shin played decently in Korea, finishing in 6^th place, while Ochoa finished well back in the standings.  This allowed Jiyai to increase her lead by a few points.  But because POY standings are based solely on your finishes in tournaments relative to the field, Shin only earned four points for her 6^th and thus only increased her lead over Ochoa by a small amount.  In Japan, Shin defended her title well, finishing tied for 5^th.  But she actually lost ground to Ochoa there.  Ochoa had been struggling most of the week, but put together a great run in the final round to finish tied for 2^nd, one shot ahead of Shin.  Although there was but one stroke separating them there, Ochoa gained 6 points on Shin, again owing solely to her finish relative to the field at the event.  Shin still held the lead in the race, but now the total difference separating was only four points.

Jiyai Shin

At the Ochoa Invitational, Lorena struggled much of the week.  She had to play host during the tournament and had more duties than usual, which somewhat negated her advantage playing the familiar course in front of her hometown fans.  But once again, she made a run in the final round to minimize Shin’s gain in the Vare Trophy and POY standings.  In the end, Shin’s third place had improved her lead to 8 points with one event to go.  What this meant was, if Ochoa won the final event of the year, she would win Player of the Year, no matter where Shin finished.  If Ochoa finished second or third, Jiyai would win if she could finish above 7^th or 10^th, respectively.  And if Ochoa finished below third, Shin would be the top player no matter  where she finished. 

Unfortunately, the Houston event was plagued by rain, which forced many delays and made the course play much longer than normal.  This of course played into the hands of golfers like Ochoa, who could hit the ball longer than Jiyai could.  After the first round, Ochoa even had the lead, four shots ahead of Shin.  But Jiyai bounced back in round 2, eventually climbing ahead of Ochoa again.

The tournament was reduced to 54 holes due to the rain, with the final round played on Monday.  Alas, Shin was not playing well that day, while Ochoa was on fire, and Ochoa soon went ahead of Shin.  Luckily for Shin, her playing partner Anna Nordqvist, another long bomber, was playing well enough to prevent Ochoa from winning the event.  But would Ochoa be able to finish second or third, forcing Shin to be 7^th or better? 

Jiyai Shin

The final round was a seesaw battle between the two.  Literally from hole to hole, the points they would have earned had it ended there and then would favor first one, then the other, for the Player of the Year.  Shin hovered between fifth and eighth.  Finally, on the 17^th hole, Ochoa hit her tee shot into a bunker and took two shots to get it onto the green.  She did make a long bogey putt to minimize the damage, but that bogey had knocked her back to a tie for 2^nd, with the possibility that one of the other players could pass her and make it that much harder for her to win Player of the Year.  But Shin also knocked her tee shot into that 17^th hole’s bunker and made bogey, falling from a tie for fifth to a tie for 8^th.  Either Jiyai needed a birdie on 18, Ochoa needed to bogey, or Kristy McPherson needed a birdie to pass Ochoa.

Ochoa, however, birdied 18, meaning that even if McPherson birdied, she couldn’t knock Ochoa out of second.  So now, Shin needed to birdie to be the Player of the Year.  Alas, she missed the green, but her chip shot came within inches of finding the cup.  And just like that, by the barest of margins, Lorena Ochoa was the Player of the Year for the fourth straight year.  Ochoa also won the Vare Trophy, although Shin did at least become the first Korean golfer to lead the money list.  But losing the Player of the Year when she had led it so much of the season was a bitter pill to swallow.  If, at any time during the week, Shin had made one more putt, she would have been POY.  Perhaps if the event had gone 72 holes, or there hadn’t been so much rain, she would have won.  Ochoa needed 7 players to beat Shin on Sunday and got exactly that much help; if even one of those players had faltered, Shin would have been Player of the Year.  It just doesn’t get much closer, or more heartbreaking, than that!

Jiyai

Other Nominees:

Se Ri loses State Farm

It’s hard to feel too terrible, if you are a Korean golfer fan, about the final result of the State Farm this year, since Korean In-Kyung Kim ended up taking the title.  But Se Ri Pak has been looking for her 25^th win since 2007, and she came so close to winning it in Illinois this year, so there is a little bit of heartbreak there to be sure. 

Se Ri was looking like the superstar of old in the final round.  On one hole she smoked her drive 330 yards; wind aided or not, it was an amazing drive.  She did have a silly short par miss early on the back nine, but otherwise was doing everything right.  She even negotiated a tricky par save on the 17^th to keep herself in the game.  When she finished at 16 under total, it looked like the only golfer who could potentially rain on her parade was her country woman In-Kyung Kim.

And that’s exactly what happened!  Inky made birdie on 16 to tie Se Ri, then hit a great tee shot on 17, making a rare birdie on this tough hole to take the lead.  She made par on 18 to secure the one shot victory over the legend. 

One nice moment came a few minutes later, when Se Ri went into the scorer’s tent to congratulate Inky on her win.  It was a nice gesture that doubtless meant a lot to the young player.

Se Ri Pak

Soo Yun Kang comes up short in Corning

We’ll get back to this one a little later, but this was another case of a veteran Korean star just missing a win on the final hole.