Magazine 2003 Kellogg's Keebler Classic

Volume 1, Number 7 June 4, 2003

Kellogg's 2003: Ya Gotta Have Han

Pages 1, 2, 3, 4, Results

Ms. Consistency gets her fifth top ten of the year

Hee-Won Han is slowly but surely becoming one of the most consistent players on tour. You wouldn't think so, considering the utter lack of coverage she gets from the media, but Hee-Won notched her third consecutive top ten finish and fourth in her last five starts at this week's Kellogg's Keebler Classic. Surprisingly, though, she has yet to really be in contention to win this year. Her finishes are all impressive, but all well out of the winner's circle. Her last three finishes were an 8th, a 9th and a 7th. The next step Hee-Won will need to take is to figure out how to up her game another notch to give her a chance at her first trophy.

Hee-Won at last year's Sybase Big Apple Classic

Ah, that first win! That is doubtless the goal for the most talented Seoul Sister to not yet partake of victory. Not that she hasn't come close, of course. Who can forget the Sybase Big Apple Classic of 2002? In the final group you had two Korean players, Gloria Park and Hee-Won Han. Oh yeah, and Annika Sorenstam. Doubtless there wasn't a media person in the world that thought that, of that threesome, the only one who would not make the playoff at the end of the round would be the Swede. But it was Hee-Won who, on the 18th green, had a six footer to get her maiden win on tour. She ended up missing it, then losing on the first hole of the playoff to fellow Korean Gloria Park. But though Gloria has two wins already, she is not nearly as consistent a player as Hee-Won, who had two other second place finishes in 2002 and nearly a third, when at the Match Play championship in Japan she just lost to Midori Yoneyama in the semifinals (in extra holes) and thus missed her chance to make it an all Korean final (against eventual winner Grace Park).

Hee-Won eyes a missed putt in round 1
Reuters/Frank Polich

Hee-Won's scores from this week reveal her strengths and her weaknesses. Simply put, she played pretty darn well, but could not achieve the kind of low score that the contenders were throwing out there at least once on the week. Still, she has nothing to feel too badly about. Her first round 69 consisted of four birdies against a lone bogey on the 4th hole. You want accuracy? She hit 15 greens and 12 of 14 fairways. Indeed, her putting was the only weak link, and even that only slightly, as she had a decent 30 putts on her round. Perhaps most noteworthy of all was a single drive early in her round, a 295 yard whopper that is so far beyond what the short hitting Han normally does that I wonder if the wind did not come into play (On the same hole that day, Grace had a 310 yard drive).

It was the same old same old on day 2, which ended up being nearly identical to day one (except no massive driving). One less green (14), but one more fairway (13), and one fewer putt (29). And thus she shot a 70. Again she had four birdies, but one more bogey. Now that's consistency! Unfortunately for her, by that time the leader was at 16 under par, which put her an impossible 11 shots off the lead. So once again, Hee-Won played well but was too far back to have a chance to win.

But she didn't let it get her down, and Sunday was her best day yet. She shot a 5 under 67, only one shot off the best score posted that day. More consistency: 5 birdies, but this time no bogeys on the card. Everything was just a little better than the first two days: 16 greens and 13 fairways compared to 29 putts.

So another top ten, but ironically it dropped her down the money list from 12th to 13th (the player that moved ahead of her? Mi Hyun Kim). So if you are Hee-Won, do you feel encouraged or discouraged? I think the former. She continues to play well, and if she does that, sooner or later she'll have a great tournament and make a run at a trophy. And who knows, maybe she'll even get shown on the broadcasts a little!