Silver Medal

Hee-Won Han has had a pretty sub-par season in 2004 for the first time in her LPGA career. In her rookie year of 2001, despite being a nonexempt player, she managed to Monday qualify for events an impressive 7 of 11 times. She only finished about 70th on the money list, but it was still good enough for her to capture Rookie of the Year that year. In 2002, she improved dramatically, finishing the year with 7 top tens, including three second place finishes. But despite her best efforts, she was unable to grab her elusive 1st win. Still, her 14th place standing on the money list showed she was a definite up and comer.

As impressive as she was in 2002, she was that much better last year. She ended up 4th on the money list, contended for a while at the LPGA Championship, grabbed her first two victories, and notched 11 top tens. Hee-Won was particularly awe inspiring in August, when she and Candie Kung seemed to take turns winning tournaments. During one six tournament stretch she finished in the top two five times. That's hot.

In the off season, she got married to her long time beau Son Hyuk. Who knows if that had any effect on her, but her 2004 campaign has been less than stellar. It's not for lack of trying; she seemed to put in, if anything, even more work during the off season than usual. But other than a few events here and there, Hee-Won has been absent from the top of the leaderboard, and had not really even contended in 2004 before the Wendy's Championship.

Hee-Won got married at the end of
last season

Hee-Won holds her trophy from last year's
Wendy's Championship

But the last few weeks have been a definite improvement for the fourth Seoul Sister. She had a great finish at the Evian Masters, which vaulted her up the money list. She followed that with a tie for 13th at the British Open. She then chose to skip the Jamie Farr Classic, where she had finished second the previous year, in order to get some rest. It paid dividends coming into Columbus, where she was defending a title for the second time this year.

In 2003, Hee-Won was in the midst of one of the hottest hot streaks of the year when she arrived at this event. She had finished second at this event in 2002, so she clearly loved the venue. She had already won her first event the previous month. Going into the final round of the three round event, she had a lead and a great chance to put it away.

But as well as she played in the final round, Wendy Ward, the champion from 2001, played even better, shooting a course record 63 to catch Hee-Won at the end and force a playoff. That playoff was a memorable one. Hee-Won dodged a bullet when Ward missed a short birdie putt on the first playoff hole. On the second hole, Hee-Won put her approach within six feet, and Ward missed the green. But Ward chipped it in from there, forcing Han to make her own birdie to continue. She did so. Finally they went to the third playoff hole, the par 3 17th, where an hour earlier Hee-Won had three putted to drop into a tie with Ward. This time, neither woman put her iron too close, but Hee-Won made a 25 foot birdie putt, Ward missed hers, and Hee-Won had her second trophy of the year.

In this year's event, Hee-Won got out to a great start right away. She managed to capture a share of the lead at 5 under par, but then the weather and darkness forced a postponement of play. Hee-Won had to come back the next day to finish up, making another birdie in the process to finish her first round alone in the lead at 6 under par.

Some other top Korean players did not do so well. Mi Hyun Kim did OK, as befits a player who had herself won on this course in the past (in fact, her most recent win was here in 2002). She came up with a one under par 71. But Grace Park was another story. She spewed out two terrible rounds loaded with mistakes despite hitting a fair amount of fairways (21 over two rounds). She missed the cut by a mile. Clearly, Grace is not yet back to her top form following her back issues. Another player who has had injuries, Shi Hyun Ahn, also had a poor showing and missed the cut, as did her chief rookie rival Aree Song. Although Jung Yeon Lee did make the cut, she too struggled all week and finished well back in the pack.

Hee Won led after round 1
Reuters

Hee Won watches the ball in round 2
AP Photo

On Friday, Hee-Won finished her first round, had a brief break, then played her second. By and large she was a lot less impressive this day. The wet fairways and frequent showers definitely affected her, as she is not the longest driver on tour. But her putter, at least, was still sound, and she was still hitting a good number of greens and fairways, even though she was not putting the ball very close to the hole on her approaches.

This led to some great demonstrations of Han's touch, and showed that, if she can just tighten up her irons a bit, she could quickly return to the form that terrorized the tour last summer. On the 13th hole, she left herself a roughly 70 foot birdie chance after a poor iron.... and nailed it. A few holes later, she had another lengthy birdie putt on 16, and came within inches of dunking that one. But the breaks also went against her on Friday at times. On the 12th hole, she hit a drive that hit something and jumped due left into a pile of rocks by the left of the fairway. It was all she could do to get it back into play from there; eventually she got a bogey on the hole after a clutch 8 foot bogey save.

As the day ended, Hee-Won shot a 70 that left her just one shot out of the lead. A defense of her title was still well within her reach.

On Saturday, Hee-Won was locked in a battle with several other great players for the title. Suzann Pettersen, the Norwegian player recently returning from surgery, had a one shot lead to start the day, but nothing much went her way on the weekend, and she was not a factor by the end. Lorena Ochoa, quietly having a career year, also loomed. Rookie Reilly Rankin really rocked (how alliterative can I be?), but also stumbled mightily as things went on. Hee-Won did not have a great Saturday, squandering a reasonable chance at birdie on one par 5 by putting her approach in the bunker, then hitting a fairly middling out to leave herself a tough birdie chance. Still, she did not make any big mistakes. On a day when even players like Michelle Wie were making quadruple bogeys on the treacherous water surrounded closing stretch, Hee-Won made no big mistakes and closed with an even par round of 72. Her 8 under total left her 2 shots in the lead by the time the round finished early Sunday morning.

Now, Hee-Won had not even been in contention all year, keep in mind. Yet not only was she in contention to defend a title for the first time in her career, she was in the lead. She had never in her career had a solid lead like that going into the final round. Interestingly, she had led after three rounds in 2003 as well. But of course, that year, the event was only three rounds long, which meant she was the champion. Had that been the case again in 2004, she would have again already had the win locked up. But they had lengthened the tournament in 2004 to four rounds, so she still had more work to do to collect the crown.

Hee-Won on Saturday
AP Photo