2005 Samsung World Championship

Grace Park hit her own wall just a hole later. Up until then she had been thoroughly outplaying Wie, but on the par 3 8th, she hit a terrible iron that went well left, rolling into a desert area near the green. A very sloped desert area. Barely able to get a stance, she swung at the ball - and missed. She tried again, but this time only advanced the ball a few feet. Not wanting to spend the rest of her life on that hill, Grace took an unplayable, which allowed her to drop the ball back along the current line from its position to the hole. This got her on solid grass, but also put her some 80 yards back and about 50 yards under the hole elevationwise. From there, she hit onto the green and two putted for a quadruple bogey 7. She would never recover from this massive mistake. She finished the day 4 over par, and the event in a tie for 14th.

Meanwhile, Annika Sorenstam caught fire and started making birdies. She roared into the lead and did not look back. By the end of the day, Gloria Park had moved into second, four shots back, but was not able to get closer than that. It seemed like this one was a foregone conclusion unless Gloria got out to a great start on Sunday.

Grace struggled on the 8th hole on Saturday

Meena, on the left, found her own way to keep
cool during the stifling heat

But the Korean player who did that was not Gloria but Meena Lee. Meena started the day 8 shots behind Annika, but made birdies on three of her first four holes to move to 9 under. She made another birdie on 9 to move into second place at 10 under. But Gloria struggled right from the start, with a bad approach into the mess on hole one that led to a bogey. She had two more bogies and a birdie in her first four holes. By then, Annika had the event firmly in control, and would go on to win easily.

On the back nine, Meena started to struggle, eventually giving back three of her four birdies with bogies. Still, she finished tied for fifth at 7 under, then later got credited with a tie for fourth when Wie was DQed. Gloria recovered and climbed back to 10 under, but bogied her final hole to drop back to 9 under and out of a tie for 2nd with Paula Creamer, who had gotten there courtesy of a holeout eagle. A little bit of bad luck for Gloria, but it wouldn't have mattered much anyway. Annika was just not going to be denied on this day.

So strangely, the Korean bad luck in the Samsung, one of two events sponsored by a Korean company on tour, continued. The one time they had the breaks go their way was when Se Ri Pak won in 1999 thanks in large part to a final hole collapse by leader Karrie Webb. Since then, we'd seen Grace's unfortunate collapses in both 2004 and 2005 and Se Ri's epic disaster score of 2004, and Han's not even getting into the field in 2005. And of course Wie's DQ. Still, they did get five Korean golfers and one Korean American into the field. If they keep having that many top quality players qualifying every year, their luck is bound to change at some point.