2007 Honda LPGA Thailand

In 2006, the Korean golfers on the LPGA won 11 times. This year, coming into the Honda LPGA Thailand event, they had only managed four victories. Furthermore, they were in the midst of a long drought that showed no signs of abating any time soon. They had even lost the event in their home country for the first time ever. The Honda event, too, had only ever been won by Koreans, but then again, it was only in its second year. In its initial playing in 2006, the winner was Korean superstar Hee-Won Han. But Han had been out of action since the Kraft Nabisco, after which she took an extended leave to have her first child. The 2007 Honda would be her first event since that break started.

Han has been a pioneer for the Seoul Sisters. Back in late 2003, she was the first of the young Korean stars to get married; less than a year later, with her husband following her group, she won her first post-marriage title, the 2004 Safeway Classic. In late 2006, she announced she was pregnant, and once again became the first of the young Korean players to take a maternity leave. She had intended to come back in time for the Kolon-Hana Bank Championship in her home country, but decided she was not ready, and thus made her title defense in Thailand her return to action. Once again, she was the guinea pig: how would a top Korean star fare after such a long layoff?

As it turned out, she did quite well. The event had been three rounds when she won it in 2006, but this year it was expanded to four. This should have made it tougher for Han to contend, being that she had played so little golf in the intervening months. But she got out to a great start, shooting a 3 under 69 to tie for fifth after one round. Angela Park, recently named the tour's rookie of the year, was the top Sister on the leaderboard at 4 under, good for third place. Shi Hyun Ahn and Kyeong Bae also shot 69s. So there was no shortage of Koreans near the top of the leaderboard. The problem was that Suzann Pettersen, who was coming off a win the previous week in Korea, was still as hot as ever. She was 8 under par after just 11 holes, and looked ready to run off with the title on the first day. She made two bogies and a birdie the rest of the round, however, to come back to Earth somewhat. Still, her 65 gave her the lead and once again made her the player to beat.

The Koreans tried their best to keep pace, but Pettersen was not giving anyone a chance to catch their breath. In round two, several of the Korean players had good rounds. Joo Mi Kim (pictured) shot a 5 under par 67 to move to 6 under total, joined there by Angela Park. Han continued to impress, shooting a 70 to move to 5 under total and to stay in the top ten. Seon Hwa Lee shot a 69, Inbee Park a 68, Jeong Jang a 69. But even the best of them were still struggling to maintain contact with Pettersen, who shot her own 68 to move to 11 under total. Somebody was going to have to go very low to make this a contest again.

That somebody wasn't going to be Se Ri Pak. Pak started the week badly with a 73, but really struggled on Friday, shooting a 6 over par 78 to plummet to the bottom of the field. Not only was her 7 over total 18 shots out of the lead, it was two shots behind Thai amateur Ariya Jutanugarn. Jutanugarn qualified for the field at a special qualifying round the previous week. What made that noteworthy was her age: she is not even 12 years old. At 11 years, 11 months and 2 days of age at the start of the tournament, she became the youngest girl in history to ever qualify for an LPGA event, breaking the record once held by Michelle Wie. And now, she was beating a Hall of Famer and 24 time tour winner by two strokes. If Se Ri were not going to win the event, at least she needed to rally to avoid losing to someone a third her age!

Lately, many of the LPGA tournaments have turned into blowouts by mid-Saturday, and this event turned out to be no different. Already sporting a two shot lead at the start of the day, Pettersen was absolutely unstoppable on Saturday, shooting a 9 under par 63 to soar to a 20 under par total and a seven shot lead over Laura Davies. Pettersen pretty much had the title sewn up, so the Koreans were going to go without for another week. The final result would end up being much closer than it seemed it would, though, as Davies and several other players charged at Pettersen on the final day, making it somewhat of a contest. In the end, though, the Norwegian star grabbed her fifth title of 2007, meaning that Norway now had more wins on tour in 2007 than Korea did (all the more surprising considering that Pettersen was the only Norwegian on tour, while there were more than 40 Koreans).

Han (pictured) wound up having a great week, shooting 72-70 on the weekend. She finished at 7 under total, good for a tie for 11th, a fantastic result for her first event in more than seven months. Unfortunately, that was also the top result for any Korean in the field. Despite the presence of more than a dozen top Korean golfers, not a single one managed a top ten. If this weren't the nadir of Korean golf in recent years, one shudders to think how much worse it might get.

Seon Hwa Lee tied Han at 11th, while In-Kyung Kim and Joo Mi Kim finished tied for 18th. The 11 year old Thai girl ended up with a 9 over par total and tied for 51st. Se Ri rallied somewhat on the weekend and finished at 6 over, finishing ahead of the girl. But Jutanugarn still beat several LPGA golfers, including one Korean, Young Kim, who had won a tournament earlier this year but has struggled ever since. Kim finished the week at 11 over par, and that was despite a final round 67.

So the week turned out quite disappointing for the Sisters. The previous week in Korea, they had nearly frozen in the tough conditions, while Jin Joo Hong struggled in her title defense. Still, they managed numerous top ten finishes despite losing to Pettersen. Then they journeyed to Thailand, where the weather was as sizzling hot as it had been cold in Korea, and another Korean star, Hee-Won Han, played well in her own title defense. But also diametrically opposite to their results in Korea, not a single one of them achieved a top ten. But one thing that was the same between the two stops: both times, they ended up watching Pettersen take home the prize.