Wegman's Rochester 2003: Soo-Yunderful

Soo Yunderful (sung to the tune of S'Wonderful)
Soo Yunderful
Soo Marvelous
That you should golf... so great...

One of the truly fun things about writing these columns is getting a chance to come up with some truly corny puns. But when you write about the same three women over and over you start to run out of them after a while (although I must say the nearly inexhaustible supply of Grace puns is still chock full of goodies to plunder). But hold! What light through yonder window breaks? It is Soo Yun! Kang, that is, and with her comes a whole new raft of punning possibilities.

Here's hoping that she continues to play like she has so far, cause I'm still eager to use such goodies as 'Kang Bang', 'Kang of Fore', and the inevitable 'Kang Shang a Lang' (for you fans of the Archies out there; c'mon, admit it, you know you like them!).

Soo Yun looks as though she has just heard
my rendition of 'Soo-Yunderful'
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle/Shawn Dowd

Soo-Yun tries to put a little 'Body Korean'
on the ball (she doesn't speak body english!)
AP Photo/Don Heupel

But take a cautious step back from the silly puns, and appreciate what she has been doing so far. Like most Korean players who come over from Korea (as opposed to the ones who grew up here like Grace Park), Soo Yun has gone through her growing pains, which include a bit of inconsistency. Nonetheless, she has accomplished some impressive things so far, such as three top tens including a second place. As she continues to acclimate herself to the LPGA, we can all assume she is only going to get better.

She managed that third top ten at this year's Wegman's Rochester LPGA tournament. Hopefully those fans who complained that many of their old American favorites chose to skip this year's event got to watch Soo Yun, and perhaps gained a new favorite.

She got off to a great start with a three under par 69 that put her right near the top of the leaderboard. The round was fairly consistent, with but a single bogey against four birdies. She managed a respectable 9 fairways hit, and a solid 14 greens in regulation. Couple that with only 26 putts taken, and you have the makings of a top five start.

Unfortunately, although she stayed near the top of the leaderboard the rest of the week, she was not able to make much progress beyond that initial start. She would go on to shoot three more rounds near par (two at par, and the Sunday round one over).

Still, that was good enough for a 9th place finish, albeit 9 strokes behind the winner Rachel Teske. She is currently hovering around the low thirties on the money list. It looks pretty likely that she will retain her tour card for next year; but if she can finish in the top thirty, all sorts of extra good things can happen for her, such as invites to some of the limited field events later in the year. Soo-Yun seems to be coming into her own on tour, and with luck she will make the top 30, or even the top 20, by the end of the year. Then she'll go from being 'the best Korean not playing on the LPGA tour' to one of the legitimate Korean superstars on the LPGA tour. And that would be Soo-Yunderful!

Soo-Yun, the queen of the artful putt
Reuters/Gary Wiepert