Fairways and Greens

Se Ri's Trip Home
As we have documented in gruesome detail the last few weeks, Se Ri Pak is in the midst of one of her worst slumps in quite some time. It started with her driver. For the last year or so, her accuracy off the tee has not been what it once was. After winning her 22nd career title in May to qualify for the Hall of Fame, her driver began to really act up. She made some efforts to modify her swing, but that only made things worse.

The past month or so, she has only managed around 50% accuracy off the tee. That in turn has caused her Greens in Regulation stat to dip quite a bit. For the last few years, Se Ri has been among the tops in the league in that category, but now sits well out of the top ten. As everything started to go wrong, she missed a couple of cuts, and her confidence in her driver began to disappear. Se Ri, uncharacteristically, began to panic.

After another mediocre event in Canada, she and her parents took a surprise trip to Korea to relax. The press there was caught off guard, but within a few days, the paparazzi kicked into gear, eventually finding Se Ri at a local driving range in Daejon, her home town, and snapping this photo of her practicing.

Se Ri had become convinced, meanwhile, that her mind was starting to affect her game as well. One solution she had to this dilemma was to attend a lengthy Buddhist service in an effort to refocus her thoughts. Se Ri is one of the more famous Buddhists in the country (she won a Woman of the Year type award from a prominent Buddhist organization in Korea only a month or so ago). The press reported her efforts with praise, but it goes to show just how famous she is over there that even her going to a Buddhist shrine makes news.

Se Ri is in Europe now preparing for the Evian Masters. Let's hope the little detour to her homeland helped her to rejuvenate herself.

Se Ri on the driving range in her
hometown last week

A cartoon published in a Korean
newspaper last week shows
Se Ri praying to Buddha.
Say, shouldn't she take her golf hat
off inside the temple??

ESPY update
To no one's surprise, Annika Sorenstam won the ESPY award as Best Women's Golfer yet again. But thanks to everyone who voted for Se Ri or Grace; we'll beat her next year!!

Money List
With many of the top players either idle or not playing their best, the big moves came among the lesser known players. The biggest mover was Young-A Yang, who scored a career best second place finish at the Giant Eagle Classic to vault from 94th place to 55th on the list. Jeong Jang also climbed to 11th, her best ever standing on this list. Se Ri Pak had a good chance to make some ground up, but she went from 13th place to 31st in the final round of the Canadian Open, while many of her closest competitors played well on the final day. As a result, she stayed pat in 8th place. Kimmie, meanwhile, had another solid performance in Canada, but still fell a place to 6th.