Peanut Again

2003 was really an aberrant year for Mi Hyun Kim. Since first arriving in America in 1999, Kimmie had always been a player who contended a lot. Without necessarily grabbing a lot of wins (just five in her first five seasons on tour) she had nonetheless been in the top ten on the money list each of her first four seasons. Even in her winless 2001 campaign, she still managed to rack up the filthy luchre with 13 top tens. Indeed, and incredibly, in her first four seasons on tour, she had never notched fewer than ten top tens in a single year. Kimmie, or Super Peanut as she is affectionately known in Korea, was a player who knew how to get to the top of a leaderboard.

But in 2003, everything changed. Suddenly, the diminutive superstar was not getting top tens. Indeed, in the entire season she only managed 5, and did not finish higher than third the whole year. A winless season with only five top tens was most un-Kimmielike, and as a result, she finished in 20th place on the money list, far below her previous worst, and her first ever finish out of the top ten.

Peanut at the Rochester International
Bob McIntosh for SeoulSisters.com
(Click to enlarge)

Peanut and her caddie
Bob McIntosh for SeoulSisters.com
(Click to enlarge)

Needless to say, this did not sit well with Mi Hyun, who at 26 was still very young by golf standards, with potentially ten+ great years ahead of her. She was not about to go gently into that good night without a fight. Her way of raging against the dying of the light, typically for a Korean, was to work herself half to death. She enrolled in a boot camp like environment in Thailand during the off season, where for several months she did nothing but golf, work out, and golf some more. The harsh regime paid dividends when she got back to tour. This season has been a great one for Mi Hyun, and coming into the Rochester event on tour, she had already notched 8 top tens, the most by anyone in 2004. She had also had several good chances to win, but unfortunately let them slip away. And so her winless streak, which extended back nearly two years, mysteriously continued.

Just in the previous week, at the ShopRite LPGA Classic, Kimmie positioned herself nicely with one round to go, then exploded up the leaderboard, eventually taking a tie for the lead at 11 under with just a few holes to go. But like often happens with Peanut, at that moment she made a few key mistakes, and even though she finished with a birdie on the final hole, it was too little too late. She ended up in 4th. Another strong finish, but another disappointment and a question about what might have been. Something similar had happened to her in Atlanta at the Chick-Fil-A Charity Championship, where she was tied for the lead with just a few holes to go but again slipped up and ended up finishing tied for second.

But perhaps the scene of Mi Hyun's greatest catastrophe was right at the Rochester International, where the LPGA tour played its event last week. In 2002, Peanut found herself with a five shot lead going into the final round. It might have been as much as 8, but Karrie Webb had managed three straight birdies to finish her day. Still, it seemed unlikely that Peanut would sweat too much on Sunday.

Yet sweat she did. She made a few key strategic errors, including an attempt to hit through some trees when she missed a fairway that was, to put it mildly, ill advised. Reaching the 18th hole, she found herself tied with Webb. Then one more missed putt by Mi Hyun later, Webb had completed the unlikely comeback. She had not been ahead until that very last hole, but that's all that counted. Fortunately, Mi Hyun ended her losing streak shortly thereafter and went on to win twice in 2002, but at the time, it was a hard blow for her to take.

This year's event, coming as it did one week before the US Women's Open, produced a field chock full of great players. It would be a challenge to contend here. But the first round also produced a few surprising results.

Classic Mi Hyun pose from the 2002
Rochester event

Grace on the phone during her (brief)
pro-am
Bob McIntosh for SeoulSisters.com
(Click to enlarge)

Grace Park has struggled quietly with a problematic back all year. It caught up to her this week. A fan on the scene, Bob McIntosh, who also provided many of these wonderful exclusive photos (give him a hand!), tells me that he watched Grace during her pro-am, which she barely attended but to provide a photo-op with the amateurs (all LPGA players are allowed to miss a pro-am during the year for health reasons). Bob says that it was pretty clear from watching her that she was not going to be able to play this week; she could barely make it around the course. And indeed, she dropped out after 17 holes on Thursday. Grace says that she did it more as a preventative measure, to insure she would be able to play in the Open. She insists that after therapy and rest, she is again ready to go. Grace fans everywhere are doubtless breathing a sigh of relief.

But Grace was one of an incredible four Korean players who dropped out of the tournament last week. This must be some kind of record. Besides Grace, rookie Ju Kim and Soo Young Moon excused themselves, as did powerful rookie Seol-An Jeon. This greatly reduced the pool of Korean players left to contend for the title.

One player who did pretty well in round one was Se Ri Pak. Se Ri has really struggled since qualifying for the Hall of Fame last month. After missing two consecutive cuts, she produced a decent but unspectacular top twenty at the LPGA Championship, the year's second Major. Her 69 on Thursday left her in a tie for fourth by day's end, a promising start to the week on a course where she had already notched many top tens in the past. Perhaps she was due a win at last at Locust Hill.