Fairways and Greens

Korean amateur dominates Futures Tour Q-School
The Qualifying tournament for the Futures Tour took place the week of November 7th in Florida. Coming in, the spotlight shone primarily on Brittany Lang, the Duke golfer who had finished second at the US Women's Open (tied with Morgan Pressel). But as the week progressed, the focus was completely stolen by a young Korean golfer named Song Hee Kim. Kim, a 17 year old member of the Korean National team, started well with a 71, but shot a 66 in round two to move to within a shot of the overall lead. In the third round, she played explosively, carding a 9 under par 63 to overwhelm the field. By the end of the day she had a seven shot lead over the doubtless stunned Lang. They played together on the final day. Although she was a bit tired because she had not gotten much sleep the night before, the rail thin, long hitting Kim kept up the assault, firing a 70 in the final round to score a total of 18 under par for the week. This shattered the previous Q-School record of 9 under set the previous year by Paula Creamer and Brittany Lincicome. Yes, she beat the former record by nine shots. Lang finished second at 13 under.

In 2004, Kim had played on the Korean national team with the likes of Sun Young Yoo, who earned an LPGA tour card on the Futures tour in 2005, and Hee Young Park, who won the KLPGA's Rookie of the Year award this year. She intends to remain an amateur and play on the Futures Tour in 2006. Those who had a chance to play with her during the week came away impressed. Australia's Nikki Garrett, who played with Kim during the second and third rounds, said, "If I putted like her, maybe I'd be that good. She made it look so easy and it was good to watch."

Kim wasn't the only Korean amateur who cleaned up. Finishing third was Ha Na Chae, also a member of the Korean national team. She shot a four day total of 10 under par (the other member of that team in the field this week, Song Yi Choi, finished 60th). Angela Park, another amateur from California, finished fifth, and former USGA Girl's Junior Champion In-Bee Park finished sixth with a 5 under total. Yup, she's amateur, too. Looks like the Koreans will be well represented on the Futures tour in 2006!

Song Hee Kim contended earlier this year on the
KLPGA tour at the SK Enclean Invitational

Song Hee plays on the Korean
National team

Jeanne Cho on the Futures Tour

Korean woman to appear on Big Break V
The Big Break is a golf reality show that is broadcast on the Golf Channel. A number of wanna-be pro golfers compete for the chance to play a couple of tour events with the big boys (or girls); hence the 'Big Break' of the title.

For the fifth edition of the show (which starts in February, 2006), the show will again be featuring women. But this time, they have picked a number of women golfers who are very talented but have not yet broken through in the professional ranks. Included in this group are ladies like Becky Lucidi, the 2002 US Women's Amateur champ, and Divina Delasin, younger sister of LPGA player Dorothy.

Also in this group is the first ever Korean contestant! Her name is Jeanne Cho, and though she is of Korean extraction, she was actually born and raised in France. Cho has had some success playing on the Futures tour in the past few years, but has not yet broken through to the big time. She is 23 years old, and turned pro in 2003, after a successful college career playing for the University of Florida. While at school, she majored in Quantitative Science, and achieved a 4.0 grade point average. She also speaks four languages (presumably French, English and Korean are three of them; I wonder what the fourth is?). Jeanne's best finish on the Futures Tour in two seasons is a second place, and she has three top tens total.

Will Jeanne be able to best her competition and advance to the 'Big Break' on the LPGA tour? Well, she's not just depending on the show; she'll also be at LPGA Q-School next week. But you can be sure she'll give both 100%. Good luck to her!

More new photos of the Sisters
A bunch of nice photos of the Seoul Sisters taken in Korea over the past year have recently surfaced on the web over there, and SeoulSisters.com has snagged them for your amusement! Click on the picture to the right to go to an entire page of goodness.

Kyeong Bae Tuning Putter and Swing
Kyeong Bae is one of the up and coming stars on the Korean golf scene. Having secured her LPGA card for 2006, she also won the KLPGA money list title for 2005. Bae turned pro at the tender age of 14, and won her first pro event less than a year later. She's been going strong ever since.

Here are a few photos recently published in Korea showing her at work on her game. As you can see, the pros take nothing for granted. In these photos she is taking a lot of time and using technology to make sure her putter is top notch. She also works hard on her swing with her coach. Hopefully this will all translate to a phenomenal Rookie season in America in 2006!

Jee Young Lee: Up Close and Personal
The latest Golf Cinderella in Korea is Jee Young Lee, the surprise wire to wire winner of the CJ 9 Bridges Classic. As you can imagine, the Korean public has been very interested in learning more about her. Here are a few photos taken near Lee's home that show what the new star is like off the course. Enjoy!

Money List
The 2005 LPGA season is over, and the Koreans as a group have had one of their best seasons yet. Despite the fact that Se Ri Pak, Grace Park and Mi Hyun Kim had their worst seasons in 2005, the Koreans managed for the first time to put four golfers into the year end top ten. Before 2005, only Kim, Pak, Park and Hee-Won Han had ever managed to finish in the top ten, but this year, three new players made it for the first time: Jeong Jang, who had a break out season, notching 15 top tens, winning a Major and making over 1.1 million dollars; Meena Lee, who won $870,000 and had three top twos including a win, all in her first year on tour; and Gloria Park, who managed to finish 9th with 11 top tens without winning.

Other players who had breakout seasons include Soo-Yun Kang, Jimin Kang, Birdie Kim and Young Kim. Soo-Yun wound up 14th on the money list, by far her best result (she had never broken the top 30 before this year). Jimin made her first two top tens on tour, including her first win. Young Kim finished inside the top 30 for the first time, and we all know how Birdie Kim won the US Women's Open as one of the most amazing Cinderella stories of the year.

So congratulations to the Korean golfers in 2005, and here's hoping they enjoy their time off!