#1 With a Bullet

The Sybase Classic, the LPGA's lone stop in the New York City area, this year offered several players a chance to do something special. For Grace Park, who coming into this week was #2 on the money list, but only $6,000 behind #1 Annika Sorenstam, it gave her a great opportunity to catch Sorenstam, who was taking the week off, and become, and not for the first time this year, the #1 player on the money list. Since she had finished 3rd at this same course last year, things looked pretty good for her to do this. Se Ri Pak, #4 on the money list, also had the chance to take over the top spot if she won or played significantly better than Grace. But Se Ri had not played this course in several years, so it was not clear what her results might be like. Then there was Hee-Won Han, who has yet to catch fire in 2004, but is getting closer. She was the defending champion, having collected her first victory in her LPGA career at the course last July, when she outlasted veteran Meg Mallon in a tense duel that went right to the final green.

Se Ri during the pro-am

Hee-Won was the defending champ
for the first time in her career

Grace and Se Ri have certainly established themselves as the top two Korean players on tour, but both of them were coming into New Rochelle, New York, significantly tired (fun fact: New Rochelle, New York, was the fictional home of Rob and Laurie Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke Show, which coincidentally had a reunion show on TV the week of this event. I wonder if they were members at Wykagyl?). The previous week, Se Ri and Grace were both playing at the X-Canvas event in Korea. The week before that, Se Ri had gotten into the Hall of Fame with her impressive two stroke win at the Michelob Ultra Championship. Se Ri in particular does not respond well to traveling a lot; she likes her sleep. And all during the Korean event, she suffered from jet lag that resulted in a 9th place finish in defending her crown. Grace, meanwhile, had played quite well, hanging with eventual champion Shi Hyun Ahn until the end but finally coming up short and finishing second. So no Annika at the Sybase may have made these two the de facto favorites, but lack of sleep and rest could prove to be the great equalizer (by the way, Shi Hyun Ahn chose to stay in Korea and skip the Sybase; check out the Parting Shot section for details!).

Meanwhile, Hee-Won Han had started to show signs of life, and Mi Hyun Kim had been very steady all year, so those two had to be considered co-favorites along with the Big Two. Add to that the fact that Han finished in the top two the previous two Sybases, and you had a recipe for a return to form for the Fourth Sister.

Rain soaked the course and made it play longer than normal, but perhaps the biggest problem the ladies had on the first day was wind. It particularly hit those in the afternoon waves, and most of the players in the lead after day one had played in the morning, when the conditions were better. One of the Koreans ended up with a share of the first round lead, and she was about as dark a dark horse as they come. Young-A Yang has been a surprising success story on the LPGA. She was a top ranked college player, but not in the league of a Lorena Ochoa or Jimin Kang. Yet when she went to Q-School in late 2002, she nabbed herself an exempt card, while Kang was only able to get nonexempt status. Last year, Yang played solid golf, notching a surprise 6th place finish at the LPGA Championship and making more than $100,000. The result was a 76th place finish on the money list and an exempt card for 2004. But this season, she has struggled mightily. In seven events coming into this week, she had missed the cut 5 times and finished no higher than 71st. There was no reason to expect that this week would be any different.

But different it was. Yang shot a 5-under par 66 on the par 71 layout, made up of 6 birdies and a lone bogey. This would be good enough to make her part of a three way tie for the lead by the end of the day.

Another player who has been playing below her 2003 standard this year has been Soo-Yun Kang, but like Han, she has shown signs of getting her game together recently. Most notable was her first round lead at the Michelob Ultra two weeks ago. She couldn't quite hang in there for a great finish, but still did respectably well there. She showed that she's got more good golf coming in 2004 by shooting a 67 on Thursday to stand only one shot out of the lead after one round.

Young-A Yang was the surprise co-leader
after the first round
(AP Photo)

Grace was one of the few top Korean
players who did well in round 1
(AP Photo)

The top players, however, did not do as well this day. Se Ri struggled mightily. When they showed her on the coverage, she looked completely out of it. She was missing fairways and greens, but still made the odd putt to hang in there. Jane Crafter, who had talked to Se Ri's caddie Colin, remarked that he told her Se Ri was totally exhausted from all the travel of the past few weeks. Se Ri gave it a game effort, but has rarely looked so blasted. In the end she struggled to a two over par 73, a fairly poor effort that left her in the mid-50s in the standings. About all she was doing well was hitting long drives; her average for the week exceeded 285 yards. She could probably make the cut, but how on Earth would she play three more rounds?

Meanwhile, Mi Hyun Kim could only manage a one over par 72, and Hee-Won struggled all day and finished with a four over par 75 that put her in great danger of missing the cut at her first title defense. None of these three top players would contend for the rest of the week.

Grace was the only one of the Seoul Sisters to break par the first day, but her 2 under 69 left her three shots out of the lead. Still, that was not a bad place to be, and with three more days to go, she had a lot of time to make her move.