The Korean Wave 2006 - Korean Cultural Service

The New York Times, thursday, july 6, 2006
d1&7
South Korea Becomes
New Face Of L.P.G.A.
By JOHN BRANCH
GLADSTONE, N.J., July 5
Less than three years ago, when the veteran L.P.G.A.
player Jan Stephenson said that “Asians are killing
the tour,” even she probably could not imagine the
impending dominance of South Koreans in women’s golf.
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It has been a swift overtaking, one that has been somewhat
rocky for both the Tour and the parade of women
who seemingly came from nowhere to win events. But
as the L.P.G.A. busily sells the largely American faces of
youth – Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis
and others, a mostly ponytailed gang in designer pastels
– the expanding array of South Koreans is taking over.
“It’s going to be the Korean Tour pretty soon,” the
Korean pioneer Se Ri Pak said with a tongue-in-cheek
grin. “Hopefully, everybody loves us.”
Entering Thursday’s start of the Women’s World Match
Play Championship at Hamilton Farm Golf Club, South
Koreans held the Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 8 spots on the Tour’s
money list. Eleven players from South Korea – a country
of about 48 million, one-sixth the size of the United
States – are ranked in the top 30 of the Rolex world rankings,
more than the United States (eight), Japan (five) or
any other country.
South Koreans have won 8 of this season’s 17 L.P.G.A.
events. Most remarkable is the depth of the talent; the
eight events were won by eight different women, all of
them under 30.
“That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” said Pak, who was a dominating
rookie in 1998, a year after there were no South
Koreans on tour. Now there are 32, and another 36 playing
on the Futures Tour.