Chick-Fil-A Charity Championship

All in all, the Chick-Fil-A Charity Championship was not a strong one for the Seoul Sisters, but there were a few highlights among the lowlights. Without further ado, a brief recap:

Highlight: Joo Mi makes a career best
Joo Mi Kim is a rookie on the LPGA tour who has a lot of promise, but up until this week, had not had a top twenty finish. That all changed in Atlanta when she finished tied for 16th, but it could have been even better. With one hole to go, she was positioned so that a birdie on the final par 5 would give her her first top ten. Alas, instead of birdieing it, she bogeyed and finished 16th. But the very next week she snagged a fifth place, so her star is still on the rise!

Highlight: Se Ri's stats were fairly decent
Se Ri Pak has won on this course in the past (she was the 2003 champion of this event). But coming into this week, her struggles were reaching awesome proportions. For nearly three rounds, though, she played pretty decently. After a so so 74 to start, she actually managed her first round in the 60s in 2005 on Friday, a 69. After 17 holes on Saturday, she was tied for 14th, and looked good to perhaps even get her first top ten of the season (although a win was not going to happen with Annika running away from the field).

Joo Mi Kim putts at the Chick-Fil-A

Se Ri during round 1

Even more encouraging, she was hitting her fairways. By the end of the event, she had managed a 66% fairway accuracy. While hardly anything to jump up and down about, keep in mind that Se Ri's accuracy was only a little better than that in the days when she was #2 on tour. She had come nowhere close to that % any other tournament this year either (at times, she had trouble breaking 50%).

Lowlight: Se Ri almost had a top ten, then...
Bu just when you were starting to get psyched about Se Ri's week, it all came crashing down again. On the final hole Saturday, she made an 8 when she hit her drive into the water. She shot a rotten 78 on Sunday, and instead of a top ten, finished 66th.

Lowlight: The other Sisters also struggled big time
It's hard to remember a tournament where all four Sisters played so poorly simultaneously. Grace Park shot a 68 on Sunday, but the rest of the week, her game was absent. She finished 54th. Kimmie really struggled on Sunday, shooting an 80, one of the few times she has ever had such a bad round. She wound up 70th. Hee-Won Han, meanwhile, played four OK rounds and wound up 37th. That's the best of the four, but still one of her worst performances of 2005.

Highlight: First Top ten for Birdie
Only one Korean player managed to get a top ten this week, and it was only the second event where no Korean finished in the top 5 in 2005. But the player who got that top ten had never before gotten one, so congratulations to her. That player was Birdie Kim, who lived up to her new first name (she was born Ju Yun Kim) by shooting three 69s and a 73 to finish 7th.

Highlight: Other young players made noise
Young Kim managed a 12th place, one of her better performances of the year. She is hovering around the top 30 on tour, and is quietly having her best season. That 12th means she has had top 25s in 6 of her last 7 starts.

Congrats also go to rookie Sung Ah Yim, who finished 16th, and Jimin Kang, who followed her career best 20th from the Michelob Ultra the previous week with a 23rd here.

Lowlight: When will the Koreans contend?
Alas, this event marked yet another in 2005 where a Korean did not have a shot at winning. This week it wasn't really their fault, as Annika had another ridiculously unreal tournament. Fortunately, relief wasn't long in coming, as the next two weeks would prove to be much more enjoyable for the Korean players and their fans!

Sung Ah Yim during the first round