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2004 Awards
Most Improved Player:
Christina Kim
Christina Kim won last year's Seoul Sisters Magazine Rookie of the Year
award, and deservedly so. But this year, she far surpassed anything she
had achieved in 2003, and showed that she is a legitimate force on the
tour, not just a decent player capable of exciting runs. Her numbers speak
for themselves: last year, she was 49th on the LPGA's money list, this
year she was 15th. Last year, she managed two top finishes, this year
she put together five. Last year, her best finish was a 4th place, while
this year she had a second and a win. She also managed top tens in two
of the four Majors, while last year she did not finish in the top ten
in any of them.
Her most impressive stretch of events came in September, when she managed
to grab the lead or a share of the lead in three of four events after
the first round, and collected her second place finish and first win.
The second place (at the State Farm Classic) in itself was amazing, as
it was good enough to win easily any other year, but was beaten by one
shot in the 2004 edition.
Honorable Mention: Jeong Jang (first ever top twenty finish
on the money list: finished 12th).
Christina Kim reacts to news that she has
been named this year's Most Improved Player
by SeoulSisters Magazine
Se Ri Pak's 2004 was a tough grind
A typical site in 2004: Se Ri trying to locate her lost ball
Most Disappointing Season:
Se Ri Pak
There can't be any doubt about this one. By any measure, 2004 was Se Ri's
worst season. Her stats were down in just about every category: fewer
wins than any year except 2000, her worst money list finish since 2000
(and only the second time she finished worse than 3rd). She only managed
5 top tens, the worst of her career, and for the first time, did not get
a top ten in any of the Majors during the year. Her scoring average sunk
to 71.34, more than a stroke worse than her 2003 average which won her
the Vare Trophy. Her driving, never very accurate even in her best years,
sunk so low that she became one of the very worse drivers in the league.
Her confidence slipped with it, and she managed only one top ten in her
final 13 events (compare that to 2003, where she made top tens in 13 of
her final fourteen events, and an 11th place in the 14th event). Most
amazingly of all, Se Ri really only contended in two events all year,
winning one and finishing second in the other. So she had two good events,
but added to that were two events where she played so poorly that one
can scarcely believe it was superstar Se Ri. The first was the Evian Masters,
where she shot a horrendous 81 in the third round, on the same course
she had once shot a 64. The 81 tied for her worst ever round of golf in
the LPGA. Then, at the Samsung, after taking five weeks off to fix her
swing problems, she played hands down the worst event of her life. She
ended up shooting a third round 80 and a fourth round 78 to finish fifteen
shots behind the next to last place finisher. Not fifteen shots behind
the winner; fifteen shots out of next to last place! Things got better
after that although, quite frankly, you couldn't get much worse.
Se Ri had finally burned herself out, and was finding it hard to motivate
herself to practice or play. She revealed that she had not taken more
than a few days off since she had started playing golf more than ten years
ago. As Annika Sorenstam's career demonstrates, that is not a formula
for winning golf; Annika learned long ago that rest is essential if you
want to perform at your best (though she perhaps goes too far in the other
direction); Se Ri needed to learn that lesson as well. Let's hope she
took a good bit of time off over the Winter, and will return to her great
form again in 2005.
Se Ri Pak qualifies for the Hall of Fame
Se Ri had only two tour highlights in 2004, but one of them was as high as you can get. That was when she won the Michelob Ultra Open in May to become the first Seoul Sister to qualify for the LPGA and World Golf Halls of Fame. She will not be able to enter the Hall until she has played ten years on tour (after the 2007 season), but she still managed to become the second youngest player (after Karrie Webb) to make it into the Hall. She did it at a tournament where her first two rounds were less than fantastic. But the third round had tricky conditions, and Se Ri took advantage of them to move herself into position for Sunday. On that day she played her best round of the year, vintage Se Ri, where she made multiple birdies and hung tough when things didn't go her way. After the event, her good friend Lorie Kane was there to spray her with beer, a fitting tribute to Se Ri's accomplishment, and she even was interviewed on SportsCenter, perhaps a first in her career. Her fans were just thinking, at last! Clearly, the nervousness of trying to make the Hall had gotten to her, and she had not been able to get those final wins as 2003 wound down. It was an unusually long time between wins for her (from August clear to May), but she pulled it off at last, and Se Ri nation (ie, South Korea) rejoiced. Congratulations and thanks for all the memories, Se Ri!
Se Ri Pak: Hall of Famer!
Shi Hyun Ahn
Shi Hyun Ahn had a lot to live up to in 2004. Her nickname in Korea, after all, is 'Cinderella'; the implication is that she somehow was given a gift of a two year LPGA membership out of the sky. Of course, that nickname is unfair. Ahn earned it thanks to her brilliant performance at the CJ 9 Bridges Classic in 2003, becoming at 19 the first player in eight years to win an LPGA event without being a member of the tour. But there was certainly a big question mark next to her name: she was only a rookie on the KLPGA tour that year, and had not even won Rookie of the Year in 2003 (that award went to Ju Mi Kim). Who knew how good she really was?
To her credit, Ahn made every effort to come out on tour in 2004 firing on all cylinders. She went through hard training before the year, to get in as good a shape as possible. The result was that she managed consecutive top fives in her first two tournaments of the year, and had a legitimate chance to win the second one before she faded badly on Sunday. For those who thought the Rookie of the Year would be an easy runaway for Aree Song, who had finished in the top five the year before at the Women's Open, it was doubtless a wake up call.
For all these reasons, Shi Hyun Ahn deserves this year's Seoul Sisters Rookie of the Year award.
Grace Park
This one was pretty much of a no-brainer, wasn't it? For the second year in a row, Grace Park earns the Player of the Year award from Seoul Sisters Magazine. Last year she earned it not because she was the best Korean player (Se Ri Pak clearly was), but because she was the player who had made the biggest improvement combined with being the player who played the best (Se Ri had had better years in the past). This year, Grace again improved, but on top of that, she was the best Korean player overall, so she is the obvious choice as Player of the Year.
What's truly impressive about Grace's year is that it was impacted by serious health issues that hurt her throughout much of the summer, when the most important and lucrative events are played, and yet she still finished second on the money list, had more wins than ever before, and put together her best scoring average. How much better could all that have been with a completely healthy Grace Park competing all year? Truly, she has become a superstar, living up to her potential at last.
She started the season with a bang. In her first three events, she had three top three finishes. She followed a second place at the Welch's Fry's with a third at the Safeway International. Then, she came into the year's first Major, well overshadowed by both Annika Sorenstam, who had boldly stated that she wanted to win the calendar year Grand Slam, and media hogging 14 year old Michelle Wie. And she played brilliantly for four rounds. Yet with her first career Major seemingly in hand, she very nearly had it stolen away by Aree Song and an unbelievable eagle on the final hole. Grace found herself with a knee knocking six footer to win. She proved that she was ready to take the next step in her career by draining the putt, becoming only the second Korean to ever win a Major (Se Ri has four). It was an auspicious beginning to her year.
Besides her intermittent back problems, Grace had one more problem during the year, and that was her tendency to put herself in great position to win, only to fall short at the last minute. The first time this happened to her was at the Chick-Fil-A Championship, where she moved to within a couple of shots of the lead early on the back nine, and was just not able to get another birdie to move up more until it was too late. She had an even better chance to win at the Wachovia Classic, where she had the lead going into the final few holes, but then started making a lot of mistakes, allowing Lorena Ochoa to overtake her and grab the win. It was the first time Grace had ever blown a tournament when she had a share of the lead going into the final round.
Grace receives a physical fitness award in December
Grace started the season great and
never looked back
Grace started feeling better again at the Safeway Classic
Happy times for Grace
But by the time she reached the Safeway, it was starting to feel better, and the difference in her playing was like night and day. The Safeway started a fantastic run of tournaments that I honored elsewhere as the best stretch of golf of the year. She came within a hair's breadth of winning at Portland, but on the second to last hole hit a weak iron and could not get up and down. She finished third, one shot out of the playoff. The next time she played, at the Asahi Ryokuken, she once again put herself into a great position to win, and once again, just missed out, finishing second. But it was the Samsung World Championship which proved the most frustrating. She led from start to well into the Sunday round, and looked at last ready to collect her second win of the year. But once again, she started to miss shots during the crucial final holes, and Annika Sorenstam snuck up to steal the win from her. It was the first time she had ever lost an event at any level when she had the outright lead going into the final round, and she was very depressed about it afterwards, saying she felt like she was 'the biggest loser' because of her defeat.
It's true that these setbacks were frustrating, but they were nonetheless three straight top three finishes. She was playing quite well, and whereas she did not finish the year with as many top tens as in 2003, every top ten she did have in 2004 was a quality one. She was giving her self more chances to win, and that would hopefully mean she would soon get a lot more wins.
She didn't have long to wait. At her next LPGA event, the CJ 9 Bridges
Classic in Korea, she played fantastically to start the event, and once
again, found herself with a lead going into the final few holes. Only
this time, instead of caving in, she played better, and easily won the
event, her first ever victory in South Korea (keep in mind that she had
left Korea just as she started playing golf, and so had played very few
events there over the years), her first multi-win season on the LPGA tour,
and her first multi-stroke win (she won by five shots). Grace would go
on to collect one more second place finish at the Mizuno Classic, although
this time, she was nowhere near to winning.
As if all that were not enough, Grace added the Vare Trophy to her cabinet
in 2004. Like in 2003, Annika Sorenstam did not play enough rounds to
qualify for the trophy, so the second best scoring average was going to
win it. It was nip and tuck between Lorena Ochoa and Grace Park the last
few events. In fact, Ochoa had an advantage over Grace at first, but Grace's
great play in September and October allowed her to overtake Ochoa with
two events to go. But then Grace ran out of gas, and so did Ochoa, and
both struggled into the finish. Although it wasn't pretty, Grace hung
in there with grit and managed to win the Trophy, in the process becoming
one of the few players in tour history to break 70 for a season (her scoring
average was 69.99). She also managed to outtouch Ochoa for second place
on the money list, her highest ever finish.
Grace also managed a few great performances in non-official events. She
led her team to a victory in the Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge in November,
and also won a Skins Game against Annika Sorenstam in China. She did not
have too great a result at another special Skins Game, where she and Annika
teamed to take on Craig Stadler and his son in Boise, Idaho. But though
they got creamed there, Grace still kept the fans entertained. She did
better in Asian events. Besides her win at the CJ 9 Bridges Classic, she
also came close to winning the KLPGA's X-Canvas event, finishing second
to Shi Hyun Ahn in a tight battle. And her brilliant play during her only
round of the Pinx Cup helped to lead the Koreans to a come from behind
victory over Japan on Japanese soil.
Grace managed all these accomplishments while maintaining a strong schedule
of sponsor commitments with Nike. She added several more sponsors to her
plate, including Sybase and Michelob Ultra, appeared in her first television
ad for Nike in the States, and found the time to serve on the LPGA's Board
besides. Her continued hard work has helped her to become the face of
Korean golf in the US, and there's no doubt she has handled the tricky
chore of melding Korean cultural ideas with what Americans expect of sports
figures probably better than any other player. As well, she showed a charitable
side this year, donating time to clinics and money to charities in Korea
and elsewhere. She was awarded with several special awards in Korea for
her efforts, including a couple that recognized her as an outstanding
Korean, not just an outstanding golfer, where she joined notable Koreans
from all walks of life as prize recipients.
For all she has achieved in 2004, Grace Park has earned one more award:
The Seoul Sisters Player of the Year award. Congratulations!
Grace at the CJ 9 Bridges Classic
Grace also kept numerous sponsor
commitments in 2004, like this fashion show
for Nike
