2005 US Girls' Junior Championship

The US Girls Junior Championship, run by the US Golf Association, is the most prestigious golf tournament for female golfers under 18 years of age. These days, with so many top amateur golfers being teenagers, this competition at times is almost as intense as the Women's Amateur, which is open to all ages. In particular, there are a number of top Korean golfers who are among the best in their age group. Several of them were there to contest the title.

The most prominent of these was In-Bee Park, now 17 and attending her final Girls' Amateur. In-Bee has had quite a record in this event. She won the title in 2002, becoming the second youngest ever to do so (after Aree Song). Back then, she was newly arrived in the States, and still not very comfortable speaking in English. She had relocated from Korea to Florida to further her golf career, and after a few years, moved to Las Vegas. In 2003, she was the medalist in stroke play for a second straight year, then got all the way to the final. In the final match, she got 5 up on Sukjin Lee-Wuesthoff, and seemed assured of her second title, only to suddenly start making mistakes. In the end she lost to Lee-Wuesthoff, but in the process learned a little about what not to do on a golf course. In 2004 she did not so all that well in the event, but came into 2005 determined to go out with one more trophy to her name.

In-Bee Park has already won
this event in 2002

In-Kyung Kim at this year's Girls' Junior

But there was another Korean in the field, one who was In-Bee's age, but had only come to the States a couple of months previous. Her name is In-Kyung Kim. Kim located herself at a golf academy in South Carolina, and planned on practicing there and playing events in America throughout the summer, then returning to Korea in time for school. But though In-Kyung was virtually unknown in the States, she was not unknown to In-Bee, who had played her a little when they were both 10 back in Korea. At the time, In-Bee was the better golfer, but there was no telling how much that had changed in the meantime.

In-Kyung had had an eventful few months in America. In fact, she had played in three girls events, and had won all three. Not a bad way to start your American golf career! Her goal was to make more history in the coming week.

As talented as these girls were, the vast majority (perhaps understandably) of the attention this week centered on American Morgan Pressel, who had recently come within two shots of winning the US Women's Open. This was Pressel's last chance to capture this trophy, which she had never won before. As far as the press were concerned, since Michelle Wie was not there, Pressel was the only story worth focusing on. More motivation for the Korean girls to get the job done!

On Tuesday, one of the Angelas, Ms. Park, did some work and then some. She matched Karle's 63 of day one with one of her own on day 2. That moved her to an impressive total of 132, which was one shot better than the previous record of 133, which Christina had set in 2001. And that held up for a while, but eventually Karle finished with another strong round of 67 to finish at 130. This was not only the lowest score in Girls' Junior history, but the lowest two day total in any USGA amateur event in history. So at least Angela Park got beaten by someone playing unbelievably great golf, but it showed that there would be more than just Pressel to reckon with in the match play. In-Kyung shot another 69 to finish tied for 8th, and In-Bee shot a one over par 73 to end up tied for 19th. Also in the top twenty was Rebecca Kim (who qualified to play in the Safeway Classic on the LPGA in a few weeks when she won the qualifier tournament called the Safeway Open). Rebecca shot a second day 67 and stood in 13th. Pressel was tied for 5th after a 68 on Tuesday.

So as match play started, Angela Park certainly looked like a Korean American player who could make some serious noise. She had just shot the second best two day total in girls junior history, after all. But in fact, she would go on to lose her opening match to Kristina Wong. Wong had barely made the top 64, shooting a 19 over par total and surviving a playoff with 14 players involved to even get into match play. Park, meanwhile, seemed primed to thrive, but Wong held onto a tenuous lead all day, and Park could not seem to make it up. Even on the final hole, she had a chance to square the match, but missed an 8 footer that would have given her the hole. She had earlier missed two three footers that cost her holes. That's golf.