2003 State Farm: Series Over!

The State Farm Series is a special bonus pool that takes place through the entire year on the LPGA. A selection of LPGA tournaments that air on ESPN or ESPN2 participate in the Series. Every top twenty finish is given a point value depending on the finish, the higher the better. The final event, the State Farm Classic, is worth triple points, and only those players who attend this event are eligible for any of the bonus money at all.

Se Ri Pak got off to a great start, winning the first event in the series, the Safeway Ping (Grace Park finished second there and Hee-Won Han third, giving them all nice standing on the Series leaderboard). From there on, Se Ri basically maintained control of the Series the rest of the year. Annika Sorenstam won the second event, the Office Depot, but Se Ri played well there also. Then Se Ri won the third event, the Chick-Fil-A, and established a solid lead. The next event was the Michelob Light Open, won by Grace Park. From there the Series continued to the Asahi Ryokuken (winner: Rosie Jones), the Kellogg-Keebler Klassic (uh, I mean Classic... Annika again), and the Wegman's Rochester LPGA tournament (Rachel Teske).

Se Ri Pak won two tournaments in the State
Farm Series. Apparently this pleased her.

Hee-Won's Series win came at the Wendy's
last month

With just two events to go, Se Ri led Annika in the standings, with Grace Park, Hee-Won Han and Mi Hyun Kim all doing well. The penultimate event was the Wendy's Championship, and Se Ri decided to skip it. This may not have been a good idea (although she hadn't played all that well at this event in the past), because it allowed Hee-Won Han, who won there, to make a big move up the standings. Still, Se Ri controlled her own destiny. If she played well at the State Farm, she was probably going to maintain the lead and win the bonus pool. Helping her was the fact that Annika Sorenstam skipped the State Farm, as she had in 2002, which meant that her nearest competitor was Grace Park. In fact, four of the top five on the list were Seoul Sisters: Se Ri, Grace, Hee-Won and Mi Hyun were in the top five along with Rachel Teske.

And Se Ri had every reason to believe that she could control her fate. She was coming off a disappointing second at the Wachovia Betsy King tournament. Disappointing because she had managed to come from a four shot deficit and take the lead, only to see the tournament slip back out of her grasp thanks to some poorly played holes. Still, she shot a final round 68 and made a game of it, when others might have just folded from being so far behind. And this made three consecutive top two finishes, including her win at the Jamie Farr Kroger Classic, so she certainly was on her game (an interesting tidbit: the Farr had been part of the State Farm Series in 2002, but was removed from it in 2003 because it was no longer on TV. A pity; had it been still televised, Se Ri's win would have assured her of the State Farm Series crown). As well, Se Ri had managed a second place finish at the State Farm in 2002, so she liked the course. About the only black spot was that this was the sixth event for her in seven weeks, and tiredness might very well end up playing a part in the outcome.

Things tipped even more in Se Ri's favor when the defending champion of the event, Patricia Meunier-Lebouc, had to bow out due to sickness. If Se Ri could just get off to a decent start for a change (something that has become quite rare for her), she could make this easy on herself.

Well, maybe not easy, because among those who were intent on the top prize in the tournament were white hot Candie Kung and Hee-Won Han. Kung had stopped Se Ri's comeback at the King, and Han, while she had lost to Se Ri at the Farr, had otherwise been unstoppable in the previous month. And then there was Grace Park, who had certainly been on a tear all year, and Mi Hyun Kim, who also finished second at this event in 2002. Plenty of horsepower in that grouping.

A vision in lavender is Se Ri during
Thursday's round
AP Photo/Seth Perlman