0 to 60

This year, the Seoul Sisters seem to be getting a lot more coverage in the mainstream media (or at least the mainstream golf media) than ever before. The sheer overwhelming power of the movement has finally forced them to take notice. There are now 21 Korean born players on the LPGA tour (not including Pearl Sinn, who is Korean born but an American citizen). That's even more than in 2003. And last year, three of the top four players on the money list were Korean.

Judging from the results of the LPGA's first tournament of the year, the scrutiny of the ladies from South Korea should only intensify as the season goes on.

For the second year in a row, the event was played on the Dell Urich course in Tucson. Last year, this course was by far the easiest the LPGA played all year. How easy? Consider this: there was one 60 and three 61s shot in the first two rounds of last year's Welch's Fry's. In all of LPGA history before that time, there had been only 5 scores of 61 or lower ever recorded! The combination of a short course, patchy rough and fairways that are so hard and fast that on days without rain several players averaged drives of more than 300 yards led to the tournament becoming a giant putting contest, at least until the weekend, when the winds picked up and the course became a tad more tricky.

Alas, the same kind of thing happened this year, although at least in 2004 there were only two scores of 61 or better. Still, no other tournament had ever yielded more than one such score, so there is plenty of evidence that the grounds crew needs to do some work before 2005's edition..

It promises to be a great year for Grace Park
Reuters/Jeff Topping

Jung Yeon Lee scared the LPGA record
for best round, but just missed out
Reuters/Jeff Topping

Several Korean players got out to good starts in round one; Se Ri Pak looked on her way to a strong opening round before a couple of late bogeys knocked her back to 67. This is how she started last year, when she missed her only cut of the year, but scoring was a lot worse than in 2003, and so she would easily make the cut this time. Mi Hyun Kim also produced a nice starting 67.

But the news on day 1 came from an unexpected source: Jung Yeon Lee. This player had finished 2003 strongly, with top 25 finishes in 9 of her last ten events, and top tens in her final three (she also notched a second place on the KLPGA tour during this period). Lee's strength has always been her length, but she worked out hard during the off season, and came back even longer than before. The results were a brilliant opening round. On this par 70 course, she managed eagles on two of the three par 5s; after the second one, she stood at 8 under par. She made another birdie on 15 via a wedge to 12 feet, then put another wedge on 16 to within 10 feet and drained yet another birdie. Suddenly she stood at 10 under par, and on the threshold of history. One more birdie, and she would become only the second woman in LPGA history to shoot 59.

On the tricky par 3 17th, she missed the green, but still nearly dunked her birdie putt from the fringe. On 18, she again had a wedge in, and this time hit it to within about 15 feet. So for a historical round, all she needed to do was sink that one putt. Well, she gave it a good run, but burned the edge and had to settle for a tap-in 60, a tie for the second best score in LPGA history.

Lee had a three shot lead going into the second round, and received prominent coverage the rest of the week. But she was never able to duplicate or even come close to playing that well again, although she did put together a solid Sunday round of 67. This allowed the rest of the field to get back into the fray, and though no one went historically low on Friday, by the end of the day, Lee's lead had been cut to one shot over Laura Davies. Davies had just won the Australian Open the previous week, so she was obviously playing well. The other player close to Lee was Karen Stupples, who had recently finished second in another Australian event.

But several other players had had surprising second rounds, and many of them were Korean. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Seol-An Jeon, a rookie playing in her first event as an LPGA player. Jeon had gotten her card at Q-School after finishing tenth on the Futures Tour in 2003. She hardly seemed like the player most poised to succeed, but after two rounds she was in fourth place with scores of 65 and 67. Fellow rookie Aree Song shot her career best 64 to vault up the leaderboard, although few thought this was much of a surprise; Aree has superstar written all over her. A bit disappointing were the performances of Se Ri Pak and Mi Hyun Kim, who both were only able to shoot even par 70s and slipped out of the top ten. But Grace Park vaulted ahead of them with a strong 66. Korea was well represented on the leader board.

Rookie Seol-An Jeon played well
all week. Here she is on the 18th
hole of her second round
AP Photo/Wily Low