Magazine 2003 Season Preview

Volume 1, Number 1 March 12, 2003

Season Preview 2003

Pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Mi Hyun's Issues
What can you do to get better at that? With five career wins on the LPGA, shouldn't she have more confidence in her abilities?

One problem is Mi Hyun's swing. It is so long, that even a little lack of timing can result in bad misses. As pressure mounts, those slips in timing can more likely occur. Compare this to Annika, who has a much shorter swing. Even Se Ri's swing has gotten noticeably shorter over the years. Mi Hyun tried to address this last year when she went to a swing specialist and shortened her swing. But it never really worked, and she soon returned to the swing we all know and love.

Peanut tried shortening her swing in 2002.
It didn't work

But a bigger problem is psychological. She gets too nervous too easily. Before the Wegman's final round, she got herself so worked up about the possibility it would be windy that she did not get a lot of sleep. As it turned out, it was windy, and the lack of sleep did not help matters. Mi Hyun needs to stop treating these events as such life and death matters. Se Ri has the exactly right attitude (and there are few better closers in all of golf): whatever happens, do your best, and if you don't win, that's golf. But if you have prepared well, hopefully things will go your way. Either Mi Hyun, or her parents, need to take the pressure off her a little bit.

Peanut reupped with sponsors KTF

Mi Hyun does seem like she is getting ready for the year quite well. As usual, she is working her little butt off. She has a new contract with KTF that will keep her in kimchee for the next few years. She also signed a contract with Honma clubs, and this one may have a big impact on her game. The rumors I'm hearing are that the clubs are giving her added distance off the tee, which will certainly help her. But they don't make an 11 wood, so she'll have to get used to hitting 6 iron again. Time will tell what the impact of that is.

Stated goals: 3 wins, perhaps a Major

Bottom Line: The new clubs may make a difference, but it's hard at this point to tell if it will be positive or negative. Mi Hyun had a habit of frequently changing clubs, and the fact that she cannot easily get her clubs refitted (Honma does not have people who can do this in America, being mostly an Asian brand) may adversely affect her. On the other hand, she is working out, the clubs seem to give her most distance, and doubtless her game will improve in many ways. I suspect we'll be seeing more great play from her, and if her mind is willing, she will meet her goals.

Grace Park
Grace Park took a quantum leap in her game in 2002. She had never been a bad player, exactly, but she had also never come close to the potential most felt she had coming out onto the tour. In 2002, she was far from perfect, and had a few dry patches here and there, but when she was on she was mighty impressive. Especially at the start of the year, where she seemed to be a fixture on the leaderboards, yet somehow was never really there at the end contending. Besides her career best number of top tens and top fives, she also managed several memorable rounds (including one, I can't remember where, when she was something like seven under after twelve holes, but stalled and finished with a 64). Perhaps her best round of the year was at the rain drenched Nine Bridges Classic, where she was the only player all weekend who managed to break par. But the problem she had time and again was that she'd follow up a brilliant round with a weak one (or had played weakly until the last round, then made an amazing but ultimately futile run to the crown). So it was that after that one under par round she shot in the 80s and finished out of the top ten. If there is one word that needs to be Grace's watchword, it is consistency. If she can improve that, even just a little, she could definitely be in the winner's circle multiple times.