By Joel Boyd
©2004 Chicago Sun-Times
May 30, 2004
Perhaps more than any other player on the LPGA Tour, Grace Park embodies commissioner Ty Votaw's five-point plan to increase the visibility of the tour.
Park, 25, plays a crowd-pleasing power game that has brought her five career victories, including her first major championship earlier this season, and has taken her to the top of the money list. She's exuberant and expressive on the course, personable and engaging off the course. And her youth and good looks fall right in line with the LPGA's marketing strategy.
Park might be considered the face of the new LPGA in another important way: She is one of a record 20 South Korean-born players to compete on the tour this year, at least 17 of whom will play this week in the Kellogg-Keebler Classic at Stonebridge Country Club in Aurora.
The wave shows no sign of ebbing, either: All but three of those players are under 30, and another 20 Koreans are playing on the developmental Futures Tour. And the group doesn't include rising stars such as Michelle Wie and Christina Kim, both born in the United States to Korean parents, or Aree and Naree Song, twin daughters of a Korean father and a Thai mother.
Off the course, however, the transition hasn't been as smooth. Underlying tensions throughout the 2003 season finally surfaced in an ugly manner in November, when LPGA veteran Jan Stephenson said in a magazine interview, "The Asians are killing our tour.''
Earlier in the season, Votaw twice met with Korean players, once to encourage them to socialize more during pro-ams and once to discuss allegations that some Korean fathers had violated rules by improperly helping their daughters during tournaments.
While Stephenson's comments, for which she apologized, were easily dismissed, Votaw has called them "a wake-up call.'' To address the cultural sensitivity issues, he hired a Korean staffer this year who goes to every tournament and serves as a player liaison. And a group of veteran players persuaded Park to join the LPGA board of directors as a non-voting member.
It was an inspired choice. Park, who went to high school and college in Arizona, destroys Stephenson's stereotype of the Korean player who shows no emotion and speaks no English. But she's also in tune with the Korean culture, which tends to look down on self-promotion and showiness, traits that are celebrated in this country.
"There are huge differences,'' Park said. "Koreans are more traditional, very conservative. Children stay with their parents until they get married. Until then, they are in their own shell.''
The parental influence has been a source of tension. Many Korean fathers serve as caddies and/or coaches to their daughters. One of the alleged rules violations was that a player's father improved the lie of her ball.
Several of the Koreans felt they were unfairly singled out by Votaw's meetings. Se Ri Pak, who spearheaded the Korean influx when she won two majors as an LPGA rookie in 1998, was particularly outspoken.
"After one situation, just one mistake [involving] only one player, there had to be a meeting?'' Pak said at the time. "To make it a problem with all Koreans hurts all of us.''
Pak's early success, when she didn't speak English and was blindsided by the sudden attention at age 20, helped ingrain the image of the stone-faced Korean player. But she has worked hard in the last six years to learn the language and be more expressive.
While conceding that some of the newer players speak only Korean, KKC tournament director Mark Hersch said he has heard many positive responses from sponsors and pro-am partners about the efforts made by Korean players.
"Most of them have caddies who know the amateurs are there to interact with the pros,'' Hersch said. "More than one amateur has been very complimentary about the player trying to use the caddie as an interpreter to bridge that gap.''
The Korean influence has made a positive impact on the LPGA's bottom line, especially in the bigger markets on tour. Hersch said the Korea Times buys a corporate skybox every year at the KKC and prints a Korean-language version of the souvenir program. The Korean Broadcasting System puts together interview and highlight packages for the fans back home, where the TV ratings for women's golf are much higher than in this country.
"It's not only captured the attention of Korean-speaking media, but that has translated to the galleries,'' said Hersch, who mentioned one Korean family that lives off the 10th tee at Stonebridge and hangs a sign in Korean during tournament week. "You look at the galleries following Se Ri Pak, Mi Hyun Kim, Grace Park, there's no question they've brought out some of their fellow countrymen.''
In fact, the popularity of women's golf in South Korea dwarfs that of men's golf. Only two Koreans play on the PGA Tour -- two-time winner K.J. Choi and U.S.-raised rookie Kevin Na -- an imbalance that has been attributed in part to the 2-1/2 years of military or police service required of Korean men.
The reason behind the Korean women's long list of accomplishments, which includes four of the top 10 spots on the money list and three of the last six rookies of the year, is no mystery.
"It's got to be hard work,'' Park said. "There is no other explanation. You have parents following most of the players, and even though everybody is grown up, they still guide them and support them and make sure golf is the only thing they have to think about. Sometimes they push the players to work harder, but it pays off out here.''
Annika Sorenstam, who will seek her third consecutive KKC title this week, has seen the Koreans feed off each others' success, starting with Pak. The same thing happened, on a slightly smaller scale, in Sorenstam's native Sweden after Liselotte Neumann won the U.S. Women's Open in 1988.
"We're going to see more and more Asian players, especially Koreans, because with the success they are having, it's a snowball effect in their country,'' Sorenstam said. "And their work ethic is incredible. If you come out here and see who is on the putting green or the driving range, those are the ones who are out there winning tournaments.''
