SeoulSisters Awards

Favorite Photo Op
Christina Kim and Jimin Kang go to the Oscars
Our favorite photo op of the year showed several LPGA golfers in a new light. They were invited to attend Academy Award after parties in Los Angeles. We got a good look at them getting ready, and the outfits they wore.

Two of the golfers who went were Korean starlet Jimin Kang and Korean American dynamo Christina Kim. As you can tell from the photos, they looked like a million bucks! And according to reports, they both had a blast, staying out until dawn enjoying the experience.

Honorable Mentions:
Christina and Shi Hyun: supermodels?
At the SBS Open, Christina Kim (there she is again!) and Shi Hyun Ahn were invited to model clothes designed by maverick Korean fashion designer Andre Kim, who likes to use athletes and actors in his runway shows (he has used Se Ri Pak in the past in other shows).

Se Ri and Seon Hwa Lee cook up a storm
Se Ri and Seon Hwa helped a group of kids make tasty treats at a special cooking "clinic" put on by their sponsor CJ in December of 2006. Both ladies love kids, and they had a ball. The kids seem to have enjoyed themselves as well!

It's About Time Award
JJ was a Major winner in 2005, and our selection for top Korean golfer of the year. Despite that, she was one of the few Korean stars who had no sponsorships. That all ended this year. Her new agents got to work, and before you knew it, JJ had more sponsors than she knew what to do with. She now has a primary sponsor in IBK, which stands for Industrial Bank of Korea (and not, as she joked to the press, 'I'm Birdie Kim'). She is using Yes! Putters and is sponsored by Cobra Golf as well. And she is also affiliated with Titleist and appears in their print ads. She also has an official charity she supports, Operation Smile, who work to perform operations on poor children with facial deformities in developing countries. JJ went from the woman with the fewest sponsorships to one of the women with the most!

Most Improved Player
Jin Joo Hong
Usually this award goes to the LPGA player who has shown the biggest move forward in her career from one season to the next. Though there were worthy players on the LPGA who could have won this prize, I decided instead to give the award to a golfer who only played two events on that tour in 2006, and who will only join the LPGA in 2007. The Most Improved Korean golfer of 2006 is Jin Joo Hong.

Jin Joo joined the KLPGA tour in 2004, and for her first two seasons, she was a decent player, occasionally putting together a good tournament, generally making a reasonable amount of money. But she was more known for her looks and her sense of style than her golf those first two years. Hong had more ambition than that, and decided that she was going to prove to the world she was more than a nice looking girl with a gift for accessorizing. Over the 2005 break, she worked hard on her game. Her goal was to have her best season on the KLPGA tour in 2006, then qualify for the lucrative Japanese LPGA tour, with an eye towards playing there in 2007.

Jin Joo succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. In the second half of the season, she frequently played quite well. She had a breakthrough win, her first, at the SK Enclean Solux Invitational in mid-September. She defeated a powerhouse field of golfers that included LPGA superstars Grace Park and Mi Hyun Kim, recent LPGA winners like Joo Mi Kim and Soo-Yun Kang, and top LPGA rookies Kyeong Bae and Jee Young Lee. Despite this deep field, Jin Joo absolutely steamrollered the competition. She got out to a big lead early and kept increasing it through the week. She ended up winning by seven shots. In second place was the top player on the KLPGA tour, Ji Yai Shin.

Just a month and a half later, she did the same thing to a similarly stacked field in an LPGA event, the Kolon-Hana Bank Championship. By the middle of Saturday's action, she had pulled out to a solid lead, and ended up winning by three shots despite a double bogey on the final hole. The win qualified her for the LPGA tour, the third KLPGA player in the past four years to achieve that feat. A few weeks later, Jin Joo played at the LPGA Tournament of Champions, where she finished a respectable 16th. She ended her KLPGA season by contending at the final event of the year, the ADT-CAPS Championship. She was in the hunt most of the week but wound up in second place, just one shot behind the winner.

Jin Joo also qualified for the JLPGA tour at their Q-School, and amazingly for quite some time was still considering playing that tour instead of the LPGA in 2007. She wanted to live with her mother in Japan, something she had not been able to do for several years. But her mother convinced her that the LPGA opportunity was too good to pass up, and so she will be over in America after all.

For climbing from the crowd in such an explosive way, Jin Joo Hong wins the Most Improved Player of the Year award.

Honorable Mentions:
Joo Mi Kim
Joo Mi had a decent rookie year on tour, finishing 50th on the money list and scoring two top five finishes. In 2006, she won her first tournament right out of the gate, compiled 4 top tens including a third at the final event of the year, and finished 27th on the money list. She also had a good season in Korea, contending in several KLPGA events, although she did not win one.

Il Mi Chung
In her third season on tour, Il Mi markedly improved her performance. In 2005, she had finished 53rd on the money list, with two top ten finishes. Her best finish was a third place at the Canadian Open. In 2006, she started her season slowly, but really kicked into gear in the second half of the year, so much so that she qualified for the season ending ADT Championship based on her second half exploits. Once she got there, she made the most of it. She got all the way to the final round, and was even in contention right up until the final few holes, when she made some big mistakes to fall into a fourth place finish. She collected four top tens in total, including a second career third place at the State Farm Classic. She finished 37th on the money list, thus earning a two year exemption on tour.

Se Ri Pak/Mi Hyun Kim
Both of these players had their career worst years in 2005, and came back strong in 2006. Kimmie had arguably her best season ever, winning twice and finishing 6th on the money list. Se Ri scored another Major triumph and finished 13th on the money list with eight top tens.