SeoulSisters Awards

Biggest Diss of the Year
Seon Hwa Lee
From the moment she qualified for the LPGA to the present day, Seon Hwa Lee, the LPGA's 2006 Rookie of the Year, has been underrated by the press in this country.

Take a look at the history of golfers who have won the Futures Tour money list, and how they have done in the LPGA. It is an impressive group. Grace Park won in 1999, and has since won six tournaments. Lorena Ochoa, the winner in 2002, was the 2003 Rookie of the Year and 2006 Player of the Year. Beth Bauer also won the Rookie of the Year the year after she led the Futures Tour. Even Jimin Kang, who led the Futures Tour in 2004, followed that with a win on the LPGA in 2005.

Based on that, the American press should have considered Seon Hwa Lee, who led the Futures Tour money list in 2005, one of the top rookie prospects coming into the 2006 LPGA season. But in fact the opposite was true. Not a single article that we read coming into the season named Lee as one of the golfers to look out for in 2006. Indeed, none of the Korean rookies were mentioned in any article as possible Rookie of the Year candidates, despite the fact one of them (Jee Young Lee) had already won an LPGA event. The focus was almost exclusively on Morgan Pressel, the promising young American star, and Ai Miyazato, who won the LPGA's Q-School by 12 shots. Granted, those two golfers were among the top prospects to win Rookie of the Year in 2006, but they were far from the only ones. The few articles that widened the focus beyond those two generally focused on golfers like Brittany Lang. Seon Hwa Lee? Nothing.

Seon Hwa let her clubs do the talking once the season started. In just her first three events, she had two second place finishes, and notched another one a few weeks after that. She seized control of the Rookie of the Year race and didn't let go. Some articles released in America at the time asserted that Lee only had control of the race while Pressel was finishing her high school classes, and was not able to focus full time on tour. That might have been a factor, of course, but if Pressel were worried about things like that, she could have always waited to become a rookie until 2007, when she was done with high school entirely and could be a full time pro. Regardless, asserting that Lee was only having success because Pressel wasn't around was unfair to the great things Seon Hwa was doing.

But most articles around that time were giving grudging respect to Seon Hwa and her accomplishments. And Lee just kept on putting up good results, not allowing anyone to forget her for long. Even when she wasn't in contention, she often was in the top twenty. By the time she won the ShopRite Classic in June, neither Miyazato nor Pressel had so much as put up a top two finish; Lee already had four.

The TV coverage was good for her as well at this point. When she showed up on the coverage, the commentators tended to praise her talents profusely. These were the good days for her. It looked like the press was willing to accept that she was the rookie to beat at that time.

For awhile, the press clung onto the hope that Miyazato or Pressel was going to knock Lee off, but eventually talk about the Rookie of the Year race faded a bit. When Lee clinched the title in September, the Golf Channel had a cursory interview with her to congratulate her. It lasted about thirty seconds. Now, Seon Hwa is not a fluent English speaker, but she is trying very hard to do all her interviews here in English, and should be given encouragement for that. Brandy Seymour asked her one question, gave her about fifteen seconds to respond, then cut her off, saying, 'Well, we just wanted to acknowledge your achievement.' What the heck was that? Thirty seconds of interview after a great accomplishment like winning the Rookie award against one of the deepest fields in history? Where was the love?

Once Lee had wrapped up the Rookie title, the press started to focus on a new rookie who was gaining late season momentum: Julieta Granada. It was too late for Granada to actually win the award, but she did have several good finishes toward the end of the year, especially her win at the final event of the season. Suddenly, articles started to appear talking about how Granada should have been the Rookie of the Year, and was really the best Rookie on tour in 2006. I can't help but think that, had Morgan Pressel won the Rookie title, those articles wouldn't have been written; but because it was some "faceless" Korean player who won, these sports writers felt that somehow the wrong player won. Since they couldn't very well propose Pressel as a worthy ROY candidate, they grasped onto Granada as their reasonable alternative.

Now, Granada had a great season, to be sure. One could certainly argue that she deserved the Rookie of the Year award. One would be wrong to argue that, but one could do it. In virtually every significant category, Lee was either ahead of Granada, or virtually tied with her. Lee had four top two finishes to Granada's three; more top fives; and the same number of top tens. She also had more top twenties than Granada in two fewer events. Very importantly, Lee did not miss a single cut all year. How many rookies have done that? Even Se Ri Pak missed a few cuts in her rookie year. Granada missed four cuts, by the way. In scoring average and tee to green accuracy, they were virtually tied. Granada did kill Lee in money earned, but keep in mind that her win at the ADT was worth one million dollars; had she won the top prize awarded for this event in 2005, she would have been well behind Lee in money. It's my opinion that the ADT so skews the money list results that it almost makes using money list finish as a measure of talent worthless. Even Granada's champions would not try to claim she is the fourth best golfer on tour, which is where her money list total places her.

And if you want a "tie breaker" between the two, look at the results at the Lexus Cup. Granada and Lee played each other in singles on the final day. As it turned out, this was the key match that settled the entire outcome of the tournament. Lee won it. Naturally, this fact went virtually unreported in the Western press.

Those reading this might well ask, why doesn't the American press like Seon Hwa Lee? It can't be racism, or they wouldn't be so gung ho about Ai Miyazato. The answer, I think, is that people have a tendency to back the player who has the most hype coming in. People had been hearing for months about Miyazato, how big she is in Japan. Her Rolex Rankings (see below) were very high as a result, and her Q-School win just seemed to confirm this impression in people's minds. Similarly, Pressel had the very memorable runner up finish at the US Women's Open (remember how Birdie Kim was treated as the accidental winner at that event, and how even Johnny Miller claimed 'Morgan Pressel was robbed'?) and was the golden girl of American golf. Sports writers just couldn't let go of that, even after it became clear that Seon Hwa Lee was every bit their equal and probably their superior. Add on to that the fact that Lee was not often interviewed because people assumed she couldn't speak English, and that there are so many other Koreans on tour that she doesn't really stand out (but the preponderance of Americans on tour doesn't stop one from talking about Pressel, does it?), and it leads to a situation where Seon Hwa gets the shaft. One can only hope that, sooner or later, the American press becomes more willing to revise their opinions as more evidence becomes available.

And as for Granada, she was unique on tour (the only top Venezuelan), and so the press latched onto her as an interesting story. Again, if they were willing to do a little legwork, they'd realize that the Korean golfers have interesting stories to tell, too. But too often, they seem to dismiss them in much the same way as eastern bloc athletes were dismissed as robots in the 70s. That's not responsible journalism, however.

I will give credit to Ron Sirak for writing a wonderful article about Seon Hwa Lee's Rookie of the Year acceptance speech, and how well it was received. She gave the entire speech in English, and everyone attending was moved to a standing ovation. But he loses those points for choosing Granada as the "real" Rookie of the Year, calling her "the class of the field". Check the stats, Ron!

(Dis)Honorable Mention:
The Rolex Rankings
This year, the LPGA adopted a new world ranking system for women golfers. The system had major flaws, starting with Michelle Wie being inexplicably ranked third in the world out of the gate (she was soon elevated to second in the world). Even after fixing that fubar, the rankings were still full of holes. The biggest flaw, without a doubt, is how low ranked ALL the Korean golfers were. First of all, even the top KLPGA players on the list were ranked well below a multitude of JLPGA golfers. What's interesting is, when those JLPGA golfers who were ranked in the top ten competed against LPGA competition, they invariably did not do that well. When Ai Miyazato, who was ranked in the top ten according to Rolex to start the year, played full time on the LPGA tour, she finished outside the top 15 on the LPGA money list. Yuri Fudoh started the year ranked fourth, a ridiculously high ranking for a player who had few international successes in major events. Meanwhile, look at Ji Yai Shin. She has rarely been in the top 50 on the rankings system to date (although in the latest rankings, she is 33rd). Yet when she played Cristie Kerr at the Korean Women's Open, she beat her. When she played other top Korean players from the LPGA tour, she usually beat them. When she played the Kolon-Hana Bank Championship, she finished fourth. Her results probably topped those of most JLPGA golfers in LPGA events and against LPGA competition. She was absolutely dominant on the KLPGA in 2006. One suspects that most of her ranking is due to her 4th at the Kolon, and not her three wins and multiple top twos on the KLPGA in 2006. What gives?

Even the top LPGA golfers from Korea were treated poorly. Mi Hyun Kim, Hee-Won Han and Jeong Jang, all top ten golfers in the world, were rarely ranked in the top ten on this list. They were usually behind Paula Creamer, Miyazato, Michelle Wie and even Morgan Pressel much of the year. There were 11 Koreans in the top 30 on the LPGA money list, but as of January 1st, 2007, only Jeong Jang (8th) and Se Ri Pak (10th) is in the top ten, and Hee-Won (12th), Kimmie (14th), Seon Hwa (17th) and Jee Young Lee (21st) round out the top 30. That's six Koreans in the top 30, compared to 11 on the LPGA money list. Furthermore, except for Se Ri, virtually every one of these Koreans is lower ranked in these listings than their LPGA money list ranking, sometimes significantly so (Kimmie, for instance, is 6th on the LPGA money list, but 14th in Rolex). After those six golfers, there are three more Koreans in the top 30, but they are all Koreans who play on the JLPGA tour: Ji Hee Lee (22nd), Mi Jeong Jeon (26th), and Hyun Ju Shin (27th). No offense to those ladies, but are they really better than Gloria Park (37th), Shi Hyun Ahn (34th), or Meena Lee (32nd)?

The ranking system definitely needs to downgrade the JLPGA and upgrade the KLPGA. It needs to factor in number of tournaments a bit better (although this might hurt the KLPGA). Pressel was mysteriously ranked very high for a long time due largely, I would suspect, to her second place at the US Women's Open. It was a great performance, but was she really as highly ranked as Rolex suggested? The ranking system should try to reflect reality in terms of who is really best, especially if it being used to seed tournaments and what not.

One more thing: the ranking was supposed to be used to determine the 64 entrants in the Women's World Match Play this year. But mysteriously, all those highly ranked Japanese golfers were absent from the field when it was announced. If you are going to have a ranking system that rewards the Japanese golfers, they should not be shafted when a field is being created. Either accept the ranking and use it, or use other means to determine fields for tournaments.

(Dis)Honorable Mention:
American press coverage of the Koreans on the LPGA
This is a big statement to make, but it's really true, unfortunately as much as ever: the Koreans on the LPGA do not get the respect they deserve from the American press. Still. When they won four events in a row earlier in the middle of the year, even the press over here could not ignore them; so their response was to write a bunch of articles about how bad it might be to have so much Korean success on the LPGA. I have yet to see an article bemoaning how bad it is that Lorena Ochoa, also not an American, won so many events towards the end of the year. Or Karrie Webb, not the most charismatic of golfers: when she won the Nabisco, the articles were almost universally positive.

The rest of the time, they simply ignore the Koreans. On TV, they generally do not get covered unless they are in or very near the lead. Sometimes a Korean golfer will be playing with an American star in the same group, and get zero coverage. Even top Koreans like Hee-Won Han will be ignored in that way. Articles about contenders at a given tournament or Major will be sure to name check teenage Americans like Morgan Pressel or Paula Creamer, but will rarely mention more accomplished golfers like Hee-Won, Jeong Jang or Mi Hyun Kim.

The only Koreans who sometimes avoid this fate are Se Ri Pak and Grace Park, but because Grace has been persona non grata on the course this year, only Se Ri has occasionally been treated well by the press here in 2006. When Se Ri won the Major earlier this year, there were several articles talking about what a great role model she was, how inspiring she was, but even then, the articles usually were framed to be about how Michelle Wie or some other American could learn from Se Ri, not about Pak herself.

It must be emphasized that this treatment is not simply because they are not Americans. Other foreign golfers, such as Ochoa, Julieta Granada and Annika Sorenstam, get much better treatment from the press here. There were no articles about how Webb, Sorenstam and Ochoa, who won more tournaments combined this year than the Koreans did, were somehow ruining the LPGA for American fans, who supposedly don't want foreigners to win. And in Korea, though the focus is obviously on the stars from that country, they generally do acknowledge the top stars from other countries and their achievements in articles over there.

In 2007, the squad of Korean rookies is perhaps the strongest in history. Here's hoping they get better treatment from the press than in the past. SeoulSisters.com is not holding its breath…