women’s golf
Without
Boundaries
Hee Young Park, one of the latest in a long line of Asian stars, tees off during the HSBC Women's Champions.
Lewine Mair reflects on the state of the LPGA Tour and the Asian players leading its renaissance PHOTOGRAPHY BY GETTY IMAGES
T
hough the women professionals have been jet-setting around the world for years, it is only now that they have started to come across as members of the so-called jet-set. In Singapore, on the occasion of the recent HSBC Women’s Champions, golf and glamour went hand in hand as never before. At the start of the week, there was a crush of photographers at Changi Airport waiting to capture Michelle Wie on what was her first visit to the island. The now 20-year-old Stanford student did not let them down. Looking the million dollars and more that she is worth, she stepped from the plane in vibrant pink boots and armed with the latest in Louis Vuitton handbags. Two days later and there was a pro-am dinner at Raffles, where the players looked every bit at home as on the fairways. That larger-than-life figure, Christina Kim, was swirling Singapore Slings in the company of rookie professional Amanda Blumenhurst. Wie was sporting a par-three of a knitted and bejewelled dress, while plenty of others were no less eye-catchingly attired. “These women certainly dress to impress,” said Ross Kinnaird, one of Getty Images’ top photographers. In terms of golfing fashions, it goes without saying that Singapore, with its high temperatures, provides a better backcloth for the latest lines than, say, a wet day in the south of England. At Tanah Merah, where every day was hot and sunny, competitors looked light years removed from the golfing women of even twenty years ago. Many were sporting outfits which could have had them heading for the tennis court as easily as the golf course, though golf would seem to allow for a touch more style. Take Se Ri Pak, who wears stunning oriental shirts designed by her sister. Christina Kim, though her taste might be a little loud for some, tops all of her outfits off with a back-to-front Kangol beret. “It’s not what you wear it’s how you wear it,” she advised cheerfully.
38
HK Golfer・APR/MAY 2010
HKGOLFER.COM
HKGOLFER.COM
HK Golfer・APR/MAY 2010
39
Christina’s good spirits are not unique. Though the girls remain as competitive as ever, they give the impression of working as a team to ensure that they make the most of their product on the road out of recession. It is the element of West accepting East and vice versa which has contributed as much as anything to the new aura and atmosphere. At first, when the Asian women, with particular reference to the Koreans, arrived on the Americans’ patch, there was more than a touch of resentment. They were seen to be taking more and more of the spoils but not too many of them were contributing to the good of the whole. For years, the LPGA had enjoyed the best of relations with their pro-am partners but, all of a sudden, there were complaints that some among the Asian element were not giving sufficient attention to the amateurs. On the one hand, they did not have enough English to make conversation. On the other, there were those who were too locked into their own games to want to pay too much heed to the hooks and slices going on around them. According to Sue Jones, assistant manager to Hee Young Park, the latest generation of Korean and Asian players “get it”. She cited Hee Young, who did not have so much as a word of English when she arrived in the States for the Nabisco tournament of 2008. Today, Hee Young is as likely to be seen with a book of English grammar in her hand as her wedge, though she long ago discovered that fragmentary English, when interspersed with smiles, can work wonders. 40
HK Golfer・APR/MAY 2010
Jiyai Shin is another who has had no trouble in seeing t he bigger pict ure. Far from taking umbrage when Caroline Bivens, the former commissioner, demanded that the Asians learn English – a n instr uct ion which would have gone down rather better had the good lady called for everyone to learn a second language – Shin could see her point of view. Last winter, after she had wrapped up the L P G A’ s 2 0 0 9 m o n e y list, she devoted a month in Australia to working on f it ness a nd Engl ish conversation. As much as anything else, Shin felt she was doing herself a favour. She likes to socialize and, as her caddie, Dean Herden, mentioned on that Singapore evening when he collected his Caddie of the Year honours, she always arrives two hours ahead of a day’s starting time to allow for time to chat to fans and friends alike. The 49-year-old Juli Inkster, who was tied with Ai Miyazato going into the last day at Tanah Merah, has been a fascinated observer of developments over the last ten years. “Everything has changed for the better,” she said. Initially, the long-term LPGA members were no different from the pro-am players in finding it difficult to establish any kind of a rapport with the new arrivals from the Far East. First
HKGOLFER.COM
impressions suggested that the newcomers did nothing other than practice and play. Inkster, though, did not take long to discover that many of them were huge characters. After running off a list of names, she picked out HeeWon Han, a graduate of Rukoko University and the mother of a three-year-old son, as one with whom she had forged a particularly good relationship. “Like the rest,” she said, “Hee-Won has really come out of her shell.” The aforementioned Shin has a truly fascinating life story, much of it tinged with sadness in that her mother died in a car crash in 2003. Even now, when you ask about her hobbies, she will recite what she has always said – that she listens to music. If you persist, she goes on to tell of a couple of records she has made back home in Korea and how she is studying for a degree in Physical Education. Her father would have been happy enough for her to focus on her golf but there came a day, some three years ago, when she said to herself, “I’m so stupid, I only know golf.” She is now a student at Yonsei University and, though most of her work is done on line, this winner of the 2008 Ricoh British Women’s Open revels in the winter weeks she spends at home and attending classes. The latter include English, maths and science and she is set to graduate at the end of this year. Yani Tseng from Taiwan is in the same position. When she was young, her parents were forever encouraging her to play golf rather than go to school. It led to a family rift, one in which she confronted her father and said that she would stop golf altogether if she were not allowed to complete her education. Yani had her way and, though she will tell you that there are days when she wonders if she will ever catch up after so much early disruption, she hopes one day to be able to set a kindergarten teaching certificate alongside her golfing titles. “I’ve always loved children and teaching them is what I want to do when I stop playing,” she explained. No less than the latest breed of Americans on tour, the Asian players are all “finding themselves” HKGOLFER.COM
and contributing to the environment which has Michael Wan, the new commissioner, feeling understandably excited about his brief. Wan said that one of the first things he noticed when summing up what he was taking on, was the “round-the-world” nature of the business, both in terms of tournaments and personnel. The top ten of the 2009 money list, he noted, took in as many as seven nationalities. It all told him that his was a tour “without boundaries” – and limitless scope. That Whan speaks at such a rate of knots is not the worst thing. To no small degree, it somehow contributes to the feeling that everything to do with the LPGA is moving at a healthy rate – including the pace of play.
Singapore Swing (clockwise from far left): Cristie Kerr, Michelle Wie, Morgan Pressel and Natalie Gulbis at Raffles; LPGA commissioner Michael Wan says the tour has limitless scope; Jiyai Shin winning the HSBC Women's Champions in 2009; Taiwanese star Yani Tseng wants to go into teaching children after she stops playing.
HK Golfer・APR/MAY 2010
41