Corona Morelia Championship Review

Remember when a certain player on the LPGA got into the face of the Korean contingent on tour, claiming that their presence and continued success on tour was 'simply killing' the LPGA? Not even two years later, the Korean network SBS signed the largest deal in tour history for exclusive rights to broadcast the LPGA back in Korea. Contrary to the aforementioned ill informed opinion, the Koreans have been a boon to the LPGA in many ways since they began to play so well.

Well, don't look now, but perhaps the next country on the horizon to help the LPGA may well be Mexico. Since Lorena Ochoa turned pro and quickly became one of the best golfers in the world, not one but *two* new events have been added to the tour in Mexico. The first one, the MasterCard Classic, took place in March and was won, like just about everything these days, by Annika Sorenstam. This week's event is yet another new one, also in Mexico, but in Michoacan, whereas the last event was in Mexico City. It's the Corona Morelia Championship, and it gives Ochoa yet another chance to win one for the home crowd.

Sung-Ah Yim is one of the Korean rookies on tour
trying to make her mark

Young Kim started the week well

The field in general, however, was rather weak for this one. I'm sure it's no intended slight against the organizers; some events just fall awkwardly on the calendar, and perhaps a lot of people did not want to travel to Mexico again so soon. As far as the Koreans go, Grace Park and Se Ri Pak continued their disappearing acts from the public eye. Grace is trying to heal her back in time for the summer, while Se Ri continues to work on her game, hoping to heal her driver. Both plan to reappear at the next event, in Nashville, Tennessee. Mi Hyun Kim and Hee-Won Han and Shi Hyun Ahn also took the week off, meaning the top ranked Koreans in the field were Jeong Jang and Korean-American Christina Kim. But several other Korean players showed up, and some of them took advantage of the week to make a little splash.

One of those players was Young Kim, who is quietly having a very good season. After a weak first event, she notched three straight top twenties, and at the Takefuji, even got her first top ten of the year. Young managed another good week in Mexico. She started off with a one under par 71, good for a tie for 10th on this treacherous track. She stumbled to a 74 in round 2, but positioned herself for a top five with a second 71 on Saturday, though she didn't have a realistic chance to win at this point.

Young Kim is one of those players that tends to do well in Majors. She likes tough courses, and the Tres Marias Residential Golf Club, where this event took place, was apparently quite a nasty track, judging by some of the scores. Especially daunting were several of the holes on the back nine. I have rarely seen so many 8's, 9's and 10's on a par 5 as I saw on the 18th hole this week. Imagine shooting a solid score for 17 holes, then finishing with a 10. It happened far too frequently.

The biggest victim of the course was poor old Sae-Hee Son. Or perhaps I should say poor young Sae-Hee, since the rookie is still only just out of high school. In fact, you may recall that she got her LPGA card by finishing 7th at Q-School shortly after turning pro, having never played any pro events previous to that. That's what you call getting off to a good start! But you could expect that she would have her bumpy days, and boy, did she have them in Mexico. After a brutal 82 on Thursday, Son played the back nine first on Friday, and ended up with five bogies, two double bogies, a triple bogey and a quad bogey. In just nine holes, she shot a +16 52. OUCH! Amazingly, she regrouped, and was actually under par on the front nine, but her 87 left her in dead last place in the field. That's one of those things you just have to chalk up as a learning experience, I guess.

As you can tell from her reaction here, Christina Kim
did not have an enjoyable tournament in Mexico

Yim kept plugging away all week. She did quite well
for three rounds

A few other players managed to put themselves into good spots after three rounds. Gloria Park and rookie Sung-Ah Yim were also both tied for 7th at even par. Soo Young Moon, who had one top ten in 2005, and the rest missed cuts, was just one shot back at one over. But neither Jeong Jang nor Christina Kim, the top ranked Koreans in the field, were able to do much this week, and both were well back in the field. Both would finish with scores in the high 70s on Sunday. This course exacted a tough toll out of everyone.

So how did the ladies do on Sunday? Well, the event was never close, as Wendy Ward and Carin Koch had separated themselves from the field, and though Ward fell apart on Sunday, Koch did not and won by six shots. Young Kim started her round well, but hit the wall at the turn with two straight doubles followed by two straight bogies. Until then, she had looked great for a top ten, but had to settle for a 16th place. Not great, but her fourth consecutive top twenty, so certainly something to be encouraged by. Yim had an even more crushing fall: she was two under par in her final round after ten holes, but was seven over par for the last eight holes and also fell out of the top ten.

The player who played best this day was Moon. Although several players well back in the field did better, it was Moon who combined good position to start the day with a solid performance on Sunday. Her strength had been the way she had played those deadly three final holes. For the week, she was three under par on those holes, with only a single bogey compared to four birdies. Very impressive when you consider what other players were shooting there.

Soo Young only made one big mistake all day, a double bogey on the par 3 14th hole. She offset that with five birdies and another bogey, for a two under 70. All things considered, a great achievement, good for a fifth place finish, the best by a Korean this week. It also allowed her to leap into the top 40 on the money list. So now she has two top tens, and all the rest missed cuts. Let's hope she gets a lot more of the former and a lot fewer of the latter in the future!

By the way, you may notice that there are not a lot of photos accompanying the articles in this issue. Although a Korean player has managed a top five in every event this season, the Koreans really have underperformed so far this year in relation to what they did in 2004. As a result, the Korean press seem not to be covering them as intensely as in the past. Hopefully, they are all training to peak at the important point in the season, early to mid summer, and we will have a lot more to watch from them then!