Editorial

There has been a lot for Seoul Sisters fans to cheer about in 2004. Se Ri Pak won the tournament that put her into the Hall of Fame; Grace Park has continued to be an awesome force on tour, winning her first Major and contending jillions of other times; the top three rookies in the LPGA are Korean; Christina Kim has emerged as one of the best young American players; Jeong Jang is having a career year and Shi Hyun Ahn has proved that the hype was real; Hee-Won Han won a brilliant title at the Safeway and looks likely to have another top ten year; etc.

But for this Seoul Sister fan and many others, it has all been soured somewhat by the mysterious downfall of Se Ri Pak. Following her win at the Michelob Ultra, Se Ri went into a tailspin the likes of which has rarely been seen in her illustrious career. Since May, she has only managed one top ten. Her scoring average is now over 71, the first time it has been so high since her second year. For the first time ever, she did not manage a single top ten in any of the Majors in a calendar year. Her driving accuracy is the worst I can ever remember, and her greens in regulation percentage is also far worse than usual. And so, even with all the great things to celebrate in 2004, this sad turn of events seems to overwhelm everything else.

It's been a tough year for World #2 Se Ri Pak

Se Ri missed the top ten in all four
Majors this year. Here she is
at the British Open

Se Ri finally took the extraordinary step of taking a long period of time off from the tour. Nothing was going right, and she seemed to be getting worse, so rather than just continue to bang her head against the wall, she dropped out of the tour for more than a month. No one is really sure what she's been up to during that time. Presumably, she set her clubs aside for a little while and took a break, then got back to work determined to correct the number one problem that has been dogging her, her inaccuracy off the tee. In 2003, despite a very weak 66% driving accuracy, she still managed an incredible 20 top tens and three wins. This shows that even when she isn't hitting it all that well, she can be an awesome force (one wonders what she could do if she hit fairways like Sorenstam does). But even a great player like Se Ri can't miss many more fairways than that, and this year her average has been more like 62%. So no matter what she needs to do to achieve it, this had to have been her top priority during her long break.

Perhaps her biggest problem, really since the middle of 2003 in my opinion, has been between her ears. Se Ri was always one of the toughest players mentally on tour, which explains how she can have the same number of top tens as a Grace Park or Lorena Ochoa, but win many more times. Since May of last year, however, she has only two wins. This is a huge slump for a player who had five wins / season in 2001 and 2002, and rarely went more than 10 tournaments between wins during that time. Proof of the mental nature of it all may be how well she played the Jamie Farr this year. Despite a streak of 8 straight finishes outside the top ten, when she got to the friendly confines of Sylvania Country Club, where she had won four times already, she played well enough to win (although she finished just one shot out of the win). This course is fairly narrow and requires good shotmaking; you would think her wayward shots would hurt her there. But they did not, and one can only assume this proves that her swing is not fundamentally damaged.

The other day, I was looking through some old tapes and discovered one of Se Ri playing at the Safeway International back in April. This was not a great performance by her by any means, although she did notch a top ten. But watching her hit green after green, give herself a lot of good birdie chances, bomb her drives, smile a lot, and generally play like a superstar, it reminded me again of just how much we lost when Se Ri hit her slump. And this was not Se Ri at her best, just her day to day average. I believe we have not seen the last of that Se Ri Pak. Whether or not she will return at the Samsung, or we will not see her until next year, sooner or later, that great player will be back. Her skills are simply too prodigious to disappear entirely. But more importantly, I hope the smile returns. I hope she relocates her joy in playing, because when Se Ri is happy, she makes a lot of fans happy as well.

Best of luck to Se Ri Pak for the rest of 2004 and the rest of her career. With her usual hard work and determination, she will get through this latest crisis with flying colors!

Se Ri can make it back. Best of luck to her for
the rest of the season!!