Singing the Blues

This week, a new LPGA tournament made its debut on the tour. The Franklin American Mortgage Championship announced the return of the best lady golfers in the world to the Nashville, Tennessee area. On two other occasions in the recent past, the LPGA had tournaments there, only to see them go away when sponsorship evaporated.

But as often happens, a new event did not come onto the schedule with a lot of fanfare or a huge purse, and thus had trouble attracting many of the top players on tour. In fact, the top four players on the LPGA money list - Annika Sorenstam, Grace Park, Se Ri Pak and Cristie Kerr - all took the week off. Not that all of them were sitting at home, however: Grace and Se Ri were busy competing in their own event in Korea (see the story about it elsewhere in this issue). Grace was so gung-ho to play the KLPGA's X-Canvas Open that she dropped out of the Franklin event with just two weeks to go, after she had already committed to appearing, and thus earned a $15,000 fine from the LPGA. This was doubtless not a slight against the fledgling event by Grace, but rather an expression of her desire to help her home country's tour with her presence.

While it's true that a lot of stars skipped this week's event, it's also true that this gave some of the players who did attend a chance to make some noise and possibly acquire a win for the first time in 2004. Among those who perfectly fit that description is one of the top players on the money list who did show up: Mi Hyun Kim. Kimmie has had a wonderful 2004 to date, notching top tens in all but one of her events played this year. Her 6 top tens already exceed the total she collected in 2003. Furthermore, she's had several chances to win, most notably at the Chick-Fil-A Championship in Atlanta just a few weeks previous. Clearly, Mi Hyun was looking forward to this opportunity to grab her maiden victory of the year.

Mi Hyun has had a very successful 2004 to date

Peanut with her most recent trophy,
the 2002 Wendy's Championship

In fact, for the eldest of the four main Seoul Sisters, it's been a long victory drought. Mi Hyun won virtually back to back in 2002 (in fact, they were consecutive events for her, as she had skipped the intervening event between her two wins). But since August of 2002, she has not again been able to get into the winner's circle. During the off season, she put herself through a hellacious workout regimen, hoping to get her game to the point where she could again start collecting trophies. That regimen, as mentioned already, has paid a lot of dividends. She has again regained the form she had that allowed her to finish in the top ten on the money list her first four years on tour. But until she ends her long stretch of winlessness, she'll never truly feel like she has come all the way back.

Other than Kimmie, there were a few other Koreans who looked poised to return to form. Hee-Won Han was finally starting to show signs of life, with several decent finishes in her last few events. Gloria Park was always hit and miss, but you never know what she can produce when she's on. Soo Yun Kang also was climbing up the ladder again, and Young Kim, Christina Kim, Aree Song and Seol-An Jeon would all be in Franklin, Tennessee, to try their luck. So the Koreans would be far from underrepresented. Even Sunny Lee and Jenny Park-Choi would be on hand.

But luck did not go the Korean players' way in the first two rounds, and with only a few exceptions, most of them either missed the cut or put themselves too far back to have a chance to win. Sunny Lee started nicely with a +1 73, but had one of her disastrous runs in the second round that left her with a 78 and another missed cut. Il Mi Chung, also a star in Korea who has had little luck so far in America, missed another cut as well. And Jenny Park-Choi, who missed more than a year to give birth to a child, has yet to get back into the swing of things; she too missed the cut.

What was surprising was that even some of the better known Korean players struggled. Young Kim has not had a great 2004 so far, and she missed yet another cut. Aree Song, on the other hand, has had a fantastic 2004, but here sputtered to a 73-75 in her first two days, and missed only her second cut of her rookie year by a single shot. And Soo Yun Kang seems to have dropped out before the event even started.

All told, 9 of the 14 Korean players in attendance missed the cut, something of a record in this, a year where Koreans frequently fill the leaderboard.

It's not clear why the relatively poor performance of so many of the Koreans, but the conditions were certainly not ideal. In fact, it rained pretty much all weekend, leaving the greens slow at times and the fairways very slow. For short hitters, this made the nearly 6,500 yard course play extremely long, which did not help their chances.

Mi Hyun played decent but not great
golf in the first two rounds

Mi Hyun turned things around on Saturday

Still, not every Korean struggled. Mi Hyun Kim, who threatens to become a permanent fixture on leader boards this year, made nary a bogey in a four birdie 68 that left her only two shots out of the lead at the end of the day. Gloria Park only did a bit worse than that, shooting a 69. Both ladies were in place to make a run at the title.

Friday proved to be a tough one for the ladies. Whereas Mi Hyun seemed perfectly comfortable on Thursday, on Friday she could not beg, borrow or steal a birdie. Not that she didn't give herself chances; she did. But none of them would fall. After an early bogey on the second hole, she would go on to par the remaining 16 holes and finish with a one over par 73. Towards the end, Peanut was definitely getting frustrated, lightly whacking her putter against her leg at one point when she missed yet another birdie by a slim margin. She would end up at 3 under for the tournament, a number of shots back in 11th place. She was far from eliminated from contention, but needed to pick up the pace on the weekend if she wanted to get the trophy. The top Korean after two rounds proved to be Gloria Park, who managed a so so 71 on Friday to stand at 4 under and in a tie for 8th. The leaders were Pat Hurst, who has won several times in Nashville and always feels comfortable when playing there, and Lorena Ochoa, the only player in the field higher on the money list than Mi Hyun. They both stood at 7 under par after two.

Mi Hyun knew what she had to do. She needed to make a move. And boy, did she ever. Saturday was the best round Kimmie has put up all year, and it started with a bang. After just five holes, she had already amassed four birdies. By the turn, she was five under for the day and sat at 9 under par, which was good enough for the lead. Neither Ochoa nor Hurst was playing particularly well, and Peanut had a chance to put them away if she could keep up the momentum.

But then those two players rebounded and started making birdies, moving back up the leader board. For a time, Mi Hyun was back to two shots behind them; but it would not take her long to right that situation. After four straight pars to start the back nine, she birdied the par 514th thanks to exquisite wedge work, then followed that with another beautiful birdie on the par 4 15th. She was splitting fairway after fairway with perfect drives, putting her fairway woods reasonably close, and sinking birdie putt after birdie putt. It was a marvelous performance. In the end, she made a final birdie on 18 to close with a new course and tournament record 64. Ochoa did manage to hold Kimmie off, barely, but Mi Hyun still sat at 11 under par, just one shot out of the lead of Ochoa. They would play together in the final round.

Peanut en route to an 8 under par 64,
her best round of the year so far
(AP Photo)