South Koreans Continue to Excel on the LPGA Tour

Ten years after their countrywoman, Se Ri Pak, became the first native South Korean to win on the LPGA Tour, South Korean lady golfers are solidifying that nation’s status as an LPGA power.  Lorena Ochoa, a six-time winner in 2008 and the reigning Player of the Year, and Annika Sorenstam, who announced in April that she’ll be retiring from competition play at season’s end, may be garnering the majority of headlines, but South Korean players are dominating the stats.

As of the beginning of play at the 2008 Ricoh Women’s British Open, South Koreans held down 40 percent of the spots in the Top 20 on the Tour Money List. (They claimed eight out of twenty slots.)  For Tournament Top Ten finishes—- another measure of a professional golfer’s skill and consistency—- seven South Korean golfers are among the Top 20 players.  (An eighth, Ji Young Oh, is just out of the Top 20 at number 24.)

The 2008 South Korean contingent is led by Seon Hwa Lee, a winner twice this year on tour, and Inbee Park, 2008 U.S. Women’s Open Winner.  (After winning the Open, Park told interviewers that as a youngster she had stayed up late back home in South Korea to watch Se Ri Pak make history when she became the youngest player to win the U.S. Women’s Open in 1998.)  Joining Lee and Park in the winner’s circle in 2008 are Ji Young Oh (State Farm LPGA Classic) and Eun-He-Ji (Wegman’s LPGA); Na-Yeon Choi, Jeong Jang, and Hee-Won Han (eight-time winner on the LPGA) round out the South Korean professionals having stellar years in 2008 on the LPGA Tour.