2007 ADT Tour Championship

The Tour Championship has traditionally been the season ending event on the LPGA tour. It has always boasted a fairly limited field, with only the top players in the league getting a chance to fight for the august title. Up until a couple of years ago, the top 30 players on the money list earned an invitation to the dance. Generally speaking, the event has not been that kind to the Koreans, although Se Ri Pak did win the title back in 1999 in a three way playoff with Laura Davies and Karrie Webb.

Last year, the LPGA decided to completely revamp the format and qualification criteria for this event. In the process, they turned it into one of the strangest but often most exciting events all year. The biggest problem has been that the final day has not lived up to the promise the excitement of the lead up suggested. In the new format, the season is broken into two halves. From each half, 15 players qualify for the event. The players can qualify in a number of ways. Firstly, certain events are designated qualification events; winning those tournaments gets you in automatically. The Majors obviously are all such events, but so are several other high profile tournaments like the Ginn Open and the HSBC Match Play. Assuming that not enough players qualify in a given half through those events, the rest of the field is filled out based on money list position. After the 30 positions are filled that way, the next two highest players on the money list who have not already made it into the field also get in. The event itself has one of the most unique formats in all of golf. After two rounds, a cut is made, with only the top 16 on the leaderboard advancing. If there are any ties in the final spot, a playoff is held until exactly 16 advance. On Saturday, all the scores are thrown out, and the remaining 16 start from even par. At the end of this day, the top eight advance to the final day, where again, all the scores are thrown out. On Sunday, the eight finalists play one round of golf; the low score that day wins a cool million dollars, with the second place player only earning one hundred thousand. Perhaps the biggest problem with this format is that a player can earn a ridiculous amount of official money in one round of golf, allowing her potentially to win the money list title for the entire year based largely on one day's efforts. That has not happened yet, but the potential is certainly there.

Last year, the winner of the million was rookie Julieta Granada, who as a result vaulted into the top five on the money list. Granada has struggled this season, and did not even qualify for the field to defend her title, one of the few times in history that a golfer has been unable to return to an event to defend her title because she did not qualify for it. Meanwhile, ten Koreans (technically, eight Koreans, a Korean American and a Korean Brazilian) qualified for the field, nine on the basis of their money list positions. In the first half of the year, three Koreans qualified for the ADT Championship, all based on their money list positions: Mi Hyun Kim (pictured), who was the 7th to qualify, Sarah Lee, who was 8th, and Jee Young Lee, who was 10th. In addition, Korean Brazilian rookie star Angela Park made it in as one of the last players to qualify in the first half. Among the players who were not able to get in during the first half were Korean superstars Se Ri Pak and Jeong Jang. In the second half, however, both of those players secured their place in the tournament. The first Korean qualifier in this half was 2006 LPGA Rookie of the Year Seon Hwa Lee, who secured her place thanks to her brilliant victory at the HSBC Women's World Match Play. JJ almost followed her by winning the Evian Masters, which also qualified the victor, but she lost in a playoff to Natalie Gulbis. Nonetheless, she won enough money to get in on her money list position. Se Ri, Inbee Park, Christina Kim and Shi Hyun Ahn also qualified based on money earned in the second half. Neither of the wild cards went to Korean golfers, although both In-Kyung Kim and Young Kim were close. Still, with ten golfers in the field, the Seoul Sisters were well represented.

On day one, the main strategy is to get oneself high enough up on the leaderboard that the second day becomes relatively stress free. On this day, two of the Seoul Sisters played really well, putting themselves in position for that easy Friday. Mi Hyun Kim, the top Korean player on the money list, ran off a bunch of birdies on the front nine, going out in 31, and even a birdieless back nine did not stop her from carding a 5 under par 67 and a tie for the lead. The co-leader was another sister, Christina Kim. Christina has had a frustrating year in some ways: she started the season struggling, but as the time came near to name the Solheim Cup team for the United States, she went on a tear, playing brilliantly in several events in a row. Alas, it was not enough for her to make the team on points, and disappointingly, she was also passed over for a captain's pick. Christina was in for more frustration at the State Farm Classic. Despite playing brilliantly, particularly on the final day, where she made two clutch birdies on the last two holes, she had to watch as fellow American Sherri Steinhauer, who had not had that great a year, suddenly could not miss a putt. Steinhauer would make two improbable long putts on the last two holes to eke out a one shot victory at that event. So, Christina certainly had a lot of motivation to try to get a win at last in 2007. She did her part on this day with that 5 under par 67.

But if Christina and Kimmie were cruising, things were not so easy for the rest of the Korean golfers in the field. Remember that the goal in the first two days was simply to finish in the top 16, but it was important to try to get as good a score as possible on the first day, to ease the pressure on day two. Several of the Koreans were behind the eight ball, alas, right out of the gate. Inbee Park was in the worst shape: she shot a 7 over par 79 on the tricky Donald Trump sponsored course Trump International, and would never again seriously threaten to make the cut. Jee Young Lee and Angela Park shot 4 over par, and neither would advance on day two. And Se Ri Pak, still struggling with a host of injuries and whatnot, played decently to start her round, but sunk into oblivion as it progressed. She was one over par through her first 16 holes, still well within the top 16. But she made back to back double bogies on the final two, extremely tricky holes, to finish 5 over par.

The final three holes at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, are some of the most challenging the women face all year. Even if a player were doing well coming into those holes, she could take nothing for granted. The 16th is a par 4 where you simply must hit the fairway. The second shot is to a two tiered green well protected by water. Trying to reach the green from the rough is tough, and trying to get up and down from off the green is also a major challenge. The 17th is a 165 yard par three hole with vast amounts of water in front of it, and a thin creek surrounding the back. Going right here is death, but if you compensate and try to go too far left, the creek will eat your ball. On the first day, even Mexican superstar Lorena Ochoa paid the price on this hole, hitting it into the water on two successive tee shots. The 18th is a tough driving hole with deadly bunkers on both sides of the fairway and water all along the right. The approach is tricky, with water on the right, a shaved bank that funnels missed balls into that water, and a bunker on the left that is very tough to deal with. All three of these holes would prove costly to players in the field during the week.

The remaining four Koreans were all fighting to make the top 16. If action had ended on the first day, the cut line would have been 2 over par. Sarah Lee, Shi Hyun Ahn and Seon Hwa Lee (pictured above) all finished precisely at that score, while Jeong Jang finished at 3 over, a shot out of the money. All four women would have a challenging Friday to see if they could continue in the tournament.