2007 Kyoraku Cup

And so, the remarkable bad mojo that has afflicted the Korean golfers most of the year struck again. On paper, there seemed to be no way they would not win this event. But the Japanese made every single shot they needed to, and got a few breaks as well. So the current edition of the Korean 'Dream Team' found themselves behind after day one, 13-11. Who would have thought that all three KLPGA stars and two of the three JLPGA stars would lose on this day? The LPGAers came through fine (only Shi Hyun lost), but if Shin, Ahn and Ji ( pictured) didn't recover from this debacle, it looked like they would have to watch the other team take the cup.

In the past, the KLPGA and JLPGA players were the weak links on the team, no question. But usually they could be counted on to win at least a reasonable percentage of their matches. Now they had to rise to the occasion and help their much more successful Korean sisters if they were going to stave off a massive loss. They needed to remember that they had had a nice lead over the Japanese earlier in round one, and if they could just hold on to a lead like that in round two, the cup would still be theirs.

The day two pairings showed Se Ri not playing, because she had left for the Lexus Cup already. In her place was the injured but game Mi Hyun Kim. No doubt it was going to hurt the Koreans not having their best clutch player around to give them inspiration, but they still had a great team on the course. JJ was to play first, while Jee Young Lee, another of their strongest players, would be in the final group, where she would match up against Arimura, the woman who had shot the 64 in round one.

1 Jeong Jang vs. Yuko Mitsuka
2 Shi Hyun Ahn vs. Akane Iijima
3 Hyun Ju Shin vs. Miho Koga
4 Eun Hee Ji vs. Sakura Yokomine
5 Seon Hwa Lee vs. Yui Kawahara
6 Mi Jeong Jeon vs. Erina Hara
7 Sun Ju Ahn vs. Midori Yoneyama
8 Mi Hyun Kim vs. Ayako Uehara
9 Sarah Lee vs. Kuniko Maeda
10 Ji Yai Shin vs. Shinobu Moromizato
11 Bo Bae Song vs. Miki Saiki
12 Jee Young Lee vs. Chie Arimura

Day two started much the same way as day one did, with the Koreans getting off to a strong start, seemingly having the cup wrapped up, then the Japanese team charging back at the end.

JJ got things off to a strong start by winning her match against Yuko Mitsuka 71-74 to tie the tournament at 13. Shi Hyun, however, continued her woes at this event. Despite the fact her opponent, Akane Iijima, was playing terribly, Ahn still couldn't get the win. She went out in +5 with Iijima +4, then Iijima won three of the next four holes to take a four shot lead. Amazingly, Ahn charged after that, but still lost 77-76. Japan was again on top.

JLPGA player Hyun Ju Shin (pictured) may be the unsung star of this event for the Koreans. While her JLPGA teammates struggled, she won on Saturday, and did it again on Sunday to put Korea back on top. Meanwhile, Korea's fans were still waiting for the KLPGAers to score any points at all. Eun Hee Ji would not break that streak; the 4th player out, she shot a miserable 78 and lost by a mile to Sakura Yokomine.

At this point, Japan held a slim lead, but then Korea went on a surge that vaulted them ahead. The next four Koreans were Seon Hwa Lee, Mi Jeong Jeon, Sun Ju Ahn and Kimmie. Seon Hwa became the first Korean to shoot in the 60s as she took her match by shooting a 69, in the process further burnishing her reputation as one of the giants of team events. Jeon made a birdie on the final hole to tie her match with Erina Hara. Sun Ju became the first KLPGA golfer to score when she trounced her opponent, and what was even more impressive, her opponent was the 'Korean Killer' Midori Yoneyama. Injured Kimmie likewise won her match. This gave Korea a four point lead and put their total at 22 points. They only needed three more points to claim the cup outright, 2 more to tie.

The final four golfers were Sarah Lee, Ji Yai Shin, Bo Bae Song and Jee Young Lee, in that order. That impressive foursome simply needed a win and a tie among them to claim the crown for Korea. But Sarah was beaten by Kuniko Maeda, and Shin unbelievably lost a second time, this time to Shinobu Moromizato. Shin did play decently this time, carding a 72, although she was under par until a bogey on the final hole. But Moromizato shot a 68. They were actually tied until the 12th hole, when the Japanese star started making birdies and Shin could not keep up. If Korea were to lose, it would probably be on the young superstar's shoulders. For a player of her caliber (the highest ranked player in the entire competition) to lose both her matches was really unfortunate.

Bo Bae Song did not play all that well, either, and her loss put Japan at the 24 point mark. So the worst Japan could do was tie. Jee Young Lee (pictured) had a two shot lead with two holes to go. She made a clutch up and down on 17, and watched her Japanese opponent, Miki Saiki, barely miss a birdie there. On 18, however, Lee put her drive left seemingly into the woods. They didn't show the second shot, but her third shot was from the fairway. Fortunately, this was a par 5, and Jee Young stiffed her shot to a foot to win the hole and her match. After two days of action, everything was tied at 24 points apiece.

This year, unlike the last time they had a tie, they decided to have a playoff. It's somewhat hard to piece together how it worked, but it was something like this. They played the 18th hole, pitting a player from each team against each other. If the two players tied, then two different players would play, and so on and so on until there was a winner. For the first playoff hole, Kimmie wisely sent out Seon Hwa Lee, who had been so tough all week. She matched up against Sakura Yokomine, but they both tied. Next came Mi Jeong Jeon vs. Shinobu Moromizato, but they also both tied. It might seem strange to put Jeon out next instead of one of the more highly ranked players, but Kimmie later explained that Jeon had won a JLPGA event on this course in the past, and she felt that Jeon would feel comfortable playing a playoff hole on this course as a result. The third playoff hole featured Jeong Jang vs. Miho Koga. The pressure by now was getting ridiculous; who would blink first? The Koreans had to feel good, though, for they had the deeper team, and the longer the playoff went, the more likely that depth would carry the day. On her third shot, JJ landed in the bunker, but she hit a great out to a meter. Next Koga had a 4.5 meter birdie putt for the win. She missed that but made par, so JJ merely had to sink her par putt to tie again. But she missed it, and just like that, the Cup was Japan's. Japan had pulled off one of the more incredible upsets of recent times.

Kimmie explained why she chose the players she did for the playoff. Seon Hwa, obviously, was chosen for her match play brilliance, and Jeon, as mentioned before, had won on this course in the recent past. JJ is obviously a great player as well, although she didn't talk about why she chose her. Captain Kimmie said that the Korean ladies had tried very hard, came together well as a team, and promised a very different result in Cheju next year! But she had to be pretty disappointed that things had turned out the way they did.

So how did this happen? Taking nothing away from the Japanese, this was hardly their A-Team, and even their A Team should have had trouble beating the Koreans. Granted, the event was in Japan, which doubtless helped. But the Korean team was more vulnerable than at first apparent. Shi Hyun Ahn has never been very good at this event, and lost both times here, and Sarah Lee, who has not played all that well for the most part in the second half of 2007, and who has yet to win in the big leagues, only made one point herself. The other LPGA stars all came through in their matches, as expected, with JJ, Seon Hwa, Jee Young, Se Ri and Kimmie notching all wins. One can only imagine that having a healthy Kimmie and Se Ri, each playing two full rounds, would have helped immensely. Even having Se Ri play instead of Bo Bae on Sunday might have been enough, injuries and all. And if you need a clutch playoff performer in the tiebreaker, having Se Ri Pak, who has never lost a playoff in her career, would have been helpful to say the least. But she wasn't even on site to cheer her teammates on.

Once the match went to a playoff, it was a crapshoot, especially considering they were playing in front of a hostile crowd. They needed to win the Cup outright before that could happen, and they didn't get the job done. Not to point fingers or anything, but it was pretty obvious where the biggest problems were: with the KLPGAers. Ahn, Ji and Shin, arguably the best KLPGA troika ever sent to this event, could only produce two points in six matches. And it's inescapable that Ji Yai Shin let them down the most. You simply can't have a fully healthy superstar like her lose both her matches. It's true that she ran up against a strong player on day two, but she did not play particularly well either day. Had she just been able to tie one of her two matches, Korea would have won. This was arguably the first true setback in her entire professional career, but she showed what she was made of by responding brilliantly the next week, playing virtually flawless golf at the Lexus Cup for team Asia.

So the Japanese team took the Lexus Cup for the first time in the Korean Dream Team era. This suggests that next year more of the top Japanese stars will be encouraged to show up for the match. Hopefully, however, the Korea contingent will use this defeat as motivation to kick some serious butt when the matches move back to their home turf in 2008. Congratulations to the Japanese squad; WE'LL GET EM NEXT YEAR!