AROUND THE GREENS
South Koreans' success not always well received

By Bill Kwon

Is the success of South Korean golfers on the LPGA Tour creating professional jealousy or just downright resentment? There's no denying the success of the 18 players of Korean ancestry on the 2003 women's tour.

Nine are on the top 50 money list with Se Ri Pak, Grace Park and Hee-Won Han among the five leading money winners. Pak and Park rank second and third, respectively, behind Annika Sorenstam.

Pak, the defending champion in this week's Wachovia LPGA Classic in Pennsylvania, has won three times this year, Han twice and Park once. Pak, Park and Han even finished 1-2-3 in the Safeway Ping earlier this year, and last week Mi-Hyun Kim joined Pak and Han among the top four finishers in the Jamie Farr Kroger Classic, which Park didn't enter.

And, at least one South Korean has finished in the top 10 of every LPGA tournament this year except for the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Even then, Koreans were well-represented. Hawai'i's Michelle Wie, whose parents are from South Korea, tied for ninth, but the LPGA doesn't include her because she's a U.S. citizen, said Laura Neal, the LPGA's manager of communications.

As ethnically rare as that 1-2-3 South Korean finish was, it wasn't the first time on the LPGA Tour that players from a foreign country pulled off a similar tournament sweep.

I remember interviewing Liselotte Neumann in an LPGA event at the Kapolei Golf Course when she finished third behind Catrin Nilsmark and Sorenstam the week before in the Valley of Stars Championship in California in 1999.

Neumann was then one of eight Swedes at the Sunrise Hawaiian Ladies Open that year.

Nilsmark pointed out that Neumann's victory in the 1988 U.S. Women's Open inspired her and other women golfers from her country. "We saw what she did and we said to ourselves, she's one of us."

Now, it's the South Koreans' turn in the spotlight with Pak being the role model Neumann had been to the Swedes. Pak's success — winning the U.S. Women's Open and a second major, the LPGA Championship, in her rookie year in 1998 — opened the way for other golfers from her native homeland.

"I think I might have given them the confidence in themselves to play better," Pak said recently. "I was the first one who tried it, did well, and then it was Mi-Hyun Kim doing well. Then Grace Park and Hee-Won Han have been doing well this year."

Unlike the Swedes, though, the South Koreans haven't been received as cordially by their LPGA peers.

There have been accusations of "cheating, pure and simple," said Golf World in its Aug. 8 issue. Or, at least, bad parenting.

The claims were raised in a meeting that LPGA Commissioner Ty Votaw had with 13 Korean players during the Wendy's Championship, which was won by Han.

According to Neal, Votaw's meeting wasn't only about those charges.

"It wasn't the entire object of the meeting. It was more along the line for their professional development," Neal said.

One problem seems to involve their inability to speak English, which isn't a problem with Park, who moved to Hawai'i in her preteens and graduated from high school in Arizona.

Pak has had to learn battlefield English as a result of so many winning interviews.

Perhaps the language barrier has made it difficult for the South Koreans to socialize more with the rest of the tour members, something which Votaw has urged them to do.

Interestingly, that wasn't a big deal when the tour had a lot of Japanese players, who didn't socialize much either.

So is it because the South Koreans are dominating?

Han's father, Young-Kwan Han, recently told Sports Illustrated that it was a case of "absolute discrimination" against Koreans.

One complaint was that other players feel uncomfortable when the South Koreans speak in their native language because they don't understand what is being said. They think they are giving tips, which isn't so, he said.

"We shouldn't be blamed for not speaking English," Han said through an interpreter.

There's nothing wrong if a caddy gives a tip, of course. And it's something that BJ Wie does for his daughter, Michelle, when he's toting her bag. Although both speak English, the Wies converse in Korean on occasion, so as not to let others know what their game plan might be.

Is it rude? Obviously, it depends on the situation. But it can be uncomfortable for others.

However, with more and more players of Korean ancestry coming up the ranks, such as Wie and reigning U.S. Junior Girls champion Sukjin-Lee Wuesthoff, the time for ethnic profiling by the LPGA must end.

And the South Koreans, in turn, can help themselves by not only learning the game of golf and all its rules but English as a second language if they want to play on the American tour.

Bill Kwon can be reached at kwon@aloha.net