We are all on the journey of life to Experience and Learn… who we become and how we choose to do this is as significant and unique as the snowflakes that fall from the sky… collectively we can make a difference in our own very special way. So much of life I can relate to how we play our golf game…

We are all so very unique and have such diverse paths we choose to take, yet we are walking down the same fairway…

What are YOU here Fore… is just a reminder that we do not all play the sport of golf for the same reasons and when we choose to, how we plan it out is quite different, yet it usually matches our lifestyles …

This is the beauty in golf.. because we are all so different and have so many individual reasons to be sharing the golf course with each other… it always interests me on the often colourful stories that each of my students have in their life and golf games.

My first question to you when I first meet a new students is…

What are YOU HERE FORE…

Rather than assume the obvious, which is to improve your golf game… most answers I find go much more deeply and have very specific experiences which brings you to this place of desired improvement through the search of knowledge…

I will look forward to sharing with you throughout the season of wonderful tales and adventures of both triumphs and challenges that I share with my students…

I know what I am HEAR for… just this! To listen, to learn and to share to make this a better place for all who wish to venture out and experience THIS GAME, a better game…

“Let’s Play Great Golf” is much more than fixing a slice… but it may be just the beginning… the path is long and it can be the most amazing journey! I look forward to sharing it with you

Component of rookie golf tips is for a participant to initial interact in some stretching routines to be certain that he or she will not likely have any muscle suffering, or any other agony that can disrupt his/her video game. You need to do some arm stretching, leg stretching, some bending routines, and so on. Actively playing some heat up video games can also support strengthen your golfing and lessen amounts of nervousness that you may well have prior to the golfing competitiveness.

Better qualities in golfing also include the complicated expertise of twisting your entire body in the appropriate way at the proper time. By utilizing this approach, you are certain to discover higher impact with every single strike at the ball. You will be shocked how much you can hit the ball in a couple a long time if you carry on like this.

Inhale deeply just prior to striking the ball. This will lower the pressure in your physique and aid you concentrate on smacking your following shot. Dedicate as a great deal time as is essential to visualize the golf ball planning exactly where it is supposed to right before you get a swing. Getting profound breaths will support ease the pressure in your shape when every person is focusing on you.

For illustration, the ideally suited ball situation for the driver is just inside of the heel of your entrance foot. Placing the ball there makes sure that the clubhead would make impression just further than the swing’s lowest stage, with an upward, sweeping movement of the club’”the best swing for the remaining used.

The next explanation could be, you established up to the ball with your arms prolonged out, and in your downswing you are bending your arms. This bending of the arms (chicken wing) shortens the swing arc. resulting in the club facial area coming into make contact with with ball at a bigger level.

When on the practice variety, only attempt to strike fifty percent the length you would generally. You will be surprised how a lot even further your ball will go when your club face and swing route are precise.

A valuable tip with regards to golf is constantly to get a excellent track record in all the terms that transpire to be utilised. This is essential so that you are able to hold smart discussions with people about golfing and not basically arrive throughout as becoming properly versed, but also give oneself the chance to locate out far far more.

The slice is not only directionally challenged but distance challenged as nicely. They will imitate the men and women they engage in with normally.

Studying golfing is all about discovering the fundamentals, knowing the conditions and with ongoing apply. From there, you can start making your personal techniques on how you can hit the golf ball extremely successfully – from postures, dealing with, movement and from generating ideal golf swings. Concentrate and resolve to understand are maybe the mystery process to bettering golfing techniques.

When acquiring prepared for a shot, make positive that your maintaining your chin and head up. Let your arms hang effortlessly, preserve minimal knee bend and bend your elbows a little bit inward. These suggestions will support you come across the stance that is the finest for you and the alignment to make the ideal shot.

So what can you do? If you are struggling from a sore elbow (lateral epicondylitis) on a regular foundation, request your area golfing pro to observe you swing a couple of moments and see if he or she can see if there is nearly anything that requirements to be corrected. A proper golf swing should really not build long-term elbow or shoulder agony. And even if your swing is ok, be positive to get ready for just about every spherical by executing some stretching and using a number of quick apply swings. If finding unfastened is essential for qualified and Olympic athletes, you have to determine that it’s also crucial for us weekend warriors.

3rd, you really should integrate golfing health workout routines into your regular golf training and golf practice routines to more stay away from golfing harm. Make confident you do frequent cardiovascular exercising like jogging, treadmill, biking and/or functioning. When you participate in the sport, wander the golfing class or use a golfing pull cart. Accomplishing so will not only preserve you a great deal of funds, but will burn off hundreds of energy in the course of action and keep your “golfing muscular tissues” loose, further preventing golfing injury.

To start with, it truly is important that you use the ideal golf devices. Youthful folks and juniors will need to have golf clubs that’re calculated properly with regards to their stature. A number of teenage gamers start off by practice employing their parents’ golfing clubs, but this is simply just not the very best strategy to get better at the know-how young fanatics demand, and might also add to adverse swing movements patterns.

The easiest way to make improvements to you round is by strengthening your limited game. Most golfers sigh when you mention placing but if you actually want slash your score the essential is in strengthening your putting technique. The ultimate essential place you have to have to increase is the way you swing your club.

It is easy to get your ball out of the sand and again on the green. This is significant since great exercise will end result in fantastic engage in an vice versa.

But it still left the Chorley 18-year-old  three shots short of the half-way cut on her LET debut.

Emily, who is attached to Hillside,  rolled in three birdies negated by a double bogey and single one.

She tweeted: “I left loads out there . . . just a shame the damage was done yesterday. At least it’s taught me how important preparation is.”

The 18-year-old from Chorley, who is attached to Hillside, ran up two double bogeys and three single one in a six-over-par 78, a lone birdie coming at the fourth.

American Alison Walshe sits atop of the leaderboard after a flawless 66.  The 27-year-old holds a slender one shot advantage of fellow compatriot Jessica Korda, who was at the top of the leaderboard for the majority of the day after teeing off early.

Australian Stacey Keating, Spain’s Belen Mozo, Thailand’s Nontaya Srisawang and American Dori Carter are at four-under-par, while South Korean Chella Choi, Sweden’s Daniela Holmqvist and rookie Ariya Jutanugarn from Thailand share seventh position a further shot back.

A group of 12 players sit at two-under par and are right in the mix, including seven-time Masters champion Karrie Webb, the French pair of Gwladys Nocera and Joanna Klatten and Australians Bree Arthur, Kristie Smith, Nikki Campbell and amateur Minjee Lee.

The golf tips in this short article are not a quick resolve. Putting them to use will need a large amount of determination and practice. If you place in the time and effort and hard work, you will be rewarded with greater swings, lessen scores, and most importantly, the sense of accomplishment that you will get from the mastery of any complicated endeavor.

Satisfactory and effective follow facility and accessible driving ranges are also critical. Holes must be appropriately positioned on areas exactly where good enough enjoyment is thought along the match as you go via swinging that stick and putting that ball into that hole!

Making use of these tactics, the standard weekend golfer can start out to uncover the rewards that a lot of experienced golfers have uncovered by building an inside-out swing path. With the promise of additional distance not only effectively struck but also off-centre strike pictures along with a far more excellent flight sequence that decrease, boring ball flights can generate in all wind situations, it is certainly a advantage to adapting to the within-out swing.

Each individual of these strategies will aid you to not only conquer that long hitter but they will also assistance you to enhance your golfing match as a whole. Concentrating a lot less on the length you are smacking and extra on swinging the club well will give you a lot more success just about every time. The match could start off on the tee box but it is usually concluded, and often received, on the placing surface area.

If you happen to be like most golfers you desperately want to reduced your score. Would not it be fantastic to be the best puppy in your foursome and see the seems of jealously on your buddies faces right after one more killer spherical? Luckily it is not as complicated as you would think.

Another great golfing idea is to generally ascertain a shot’s route in advance of striking it. Too normally golfers address the ball without figuring out direction. In addition, determine other important variables like length, trajectory, and curvature. All these elements should be deemed to hit a focus on. Analyzing a shot’s function, also essential to accuracy, significantly influences people other aspects.

Like discussed higher than you can verify this by wanting at the direction of your divot. We will do the job on length handle as soon as you grasp the motion.

No subject how a lot you appreciate to participate in the video game but you will not set aside adequate time to apply its craft then you will hardly ever get the correct moves you want. Dedication is a single of the most effective characteristics you really should have if you want to find out and boost your activity. Even with out going to the eco-friendly, if you are busy then you ought to consider of some way to exercise your recreation. You just have to make use of your muse and search for some uncomplicated but considered to be one particular of the greatest golf tips that would help you strengthen your moves.

Typical Construction of Golfing Programs – A person thought you have to make in scheduling your tee times is the general structural approach of the certain golf courses you are planning into.

A helpful suggestion with regards to golf is normally to get a superior history in all the phrases that take place to be utilised. This is important so that you are in a position to hold intelligent conversations with folks about golfing and not simply just appear throughout as remaining properly versed, but also give oneself the chance to discover out much extra.

There is almost nothing more essential on the golfing training course than your quick sport, and the good news is that you can observe most all facets of it ideal in your household.

Grip: Good grip stress is the place it all begins. If you start off your swing with as well a great deal pressure, then the rest of your physique will comply with match. Just about every golfer has seen the manifestation the demise grip. The real truth is the dying grip will kill your swing.

Numerous golfers start out out with desires of taking part in like a pro. Several then settle for even mediocre play even though out on the program or for beating their buddies in a round below and there. However other folks check out the pros on Television set, mesmerized by the actuality that it seems every other shot they strike is an wonderful shot. Whilst definitely playing like a pro normally takes a long time of practice and dedication, it is achievable to discover to participate in your very best.

Never ever neglect finding out there on the driving range to knock a handful of balls close to. If you get them hooked young, they’re going to be hooked without end.

You will uncover various ideas for keen golfing pursuers obtainable to the net and myriads of literature available about them, golf tips for beginners. It can be feasible to discover pretty most of the golf tips for first-timers, so explore the quite most effective web-site or a E book in advance of inserting the suggestions in to utilize. There’s a good bargain of distinct golf tips for first-timers from numerous people these suggestions could boost the confusion of any budding golfer or even made use of in mix with some discretion.

Provide your self with extra odds to operate on your iron game by leaving your driver and fairway woods in the trunk prior to your up coming spherical. Even nevertheless you sacrifice some length off the tee, you will uncover that actively playing with just golf irons will present you with that supplemental apply without the need of obtaining to sacrifice your score.

Preserve a good tempo though golfing. The group that is at the rear of you may well be annoyed if you are slow. If you conclude up with a gradual group and inexperienced gamers, ask any speedier teams driving you to play on by way of.

A furthermore was that I had the possibility to play on a large amount of distinctive golfing programs in unique elements with the earth. That assisted me reduce my strokes from 183 down to 137 in excess of a interval of several several years and I in no way obtained any coaching to aid me carry out that.

As a start out, here are 10 recommendations to look at and use to make improvements to your golf match. Please be aware that I am a right-handed golfer and some ideas have to be modified for still left-handed golfers.

A wonderful hint for putting is when you handle the ball, your remaining hand wants to be in front of the ball. Retain your stance though swinging your club. You will then be in a position to keep the situation of your golfing club and prevent the ball from going off the front of the club.

Bent over your human body from the hip, and retain your eyes straight to the ball. This may well or may perhaps not be caused by an old golfing glove.

Does you son or daughter have an fascination in hoping out for the golfing staff? I want to give you some golf tips to aid them. What a great sport for any one. This is a activity exactly where your baby does not have to be the greatest, the speediest, the tallest or any other present that numerous sports need. In particular for girls. the possibilities for faculty scholarships are huge. If your little ones are planning to golfing observe Fantastic!! My issue is, are they getting greater and are they getting greater quick ample to be profitable at this activity? How can you aid, let’s discuss about that.

Common Structure of Golfing Programs – One particular thing to consider you have to make in planning your tee situations is the typical structural system of the precise golf classes you are planning into.

Decide on at ease, cotton-khaki trousers for golfing. They must be marginally free fitting, and they ought to not have cuffs due to the fact you will close up with anything from sand to grime to leaves in your cuffs if you make the slip-up of acquiring them! Will not make a spectacle of oneself with loud colors, knickers, or any other weird type of clothes.

Recognize this 3 principle and apply it to your sport. Consider to concentrate on these a couple of recommendations when you play golf again. Accomplish this everytime you perform golf often and you will notice the enhancement in your golf recreation.

If you might be like most golfers you desperately want to decrease your score. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be the prime dog in your foursome and see the appears of jealously on your buddies faces following a different killer round? The good news is it really is not as difficult as you would consider.

The proper posture, stance, and the likes, are also crucial if you yearn to boost your golf. Your physique really should be appropriately aligned, and the next human body elements should really all be in parallel situation to your goal: your knees, eyes, forearm, and your toes. Adhering to this system of how to participate in golfing will allow you to turn into greater at golf.

Considerably prolonged (or brief) drives are factors of lots of factors. A good driver shot will be a very simple golfing swing.

A dear friend of the family, the late Frank Pastore, was a professional baseball player for the Cincinnati Reds who later became a radio talk show host. Frank was always looking at the bigger picture, while posing both comical and philosophically deep questions. No matter the topic, Frank would always ask the question at the end of every segment, “What’s the take away?”

While Frank posed this question to athletes and professors alike, this question can be posed in the game of golf, “what is the take away?” In our case, it’s our golf swing. Here is an easy take away drill that will help you maintain (or get you to) a good tempo in your golf swing.

The first few feet of your take-away should be the slowest part of your swing. Many golfers jerk the club back too quickly, which leaves a poor tempo through the backswing and ultimately back to the ball.

To set up a good take-away, perform the following steps:

1.You will want to set up your tee (golf ball in place) with a long iron.
2.Now place another golf ball directly behind the club head.
3.Take your normal backswing but notice how far back that second ball rolls. Note: It should only roll a few feet.
4.If the ball catches air or jumps back more than a few feet, you have started your backswing too quickly. The goal is to get a slow and smooth start to your backswing. Once you have accomplished this slow and smooth backswing then you will see positive results throughout your swing, especially at impact.

After practicing a few times, step back and ask yourself, “what is the take away?”

Page 1:

Best Start to the season
Biggest Disappearing Act
Best Korean Confrontation
Best Korean Finish

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Best Breakthrough
Cinderella of the Year (the year’s most unlikely winner)
Great Performance that came up short

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Clutch Performance of the Year
Biggest Disappointment
Most Dominating Performance

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Shot of the Year
Round of the Year
Most Controversial Moment
Tournament of the Year

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Page 5:

Most Fashionable
Most Touching Moment
Best Teen
Best Hot Streak

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Rookie of the Year
Rookie to Watch in 2013
Most Improved Player

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Player of the Year

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And the Winner Is: Inbee Park

Inbee Park

I don’t think I’ve ever had a harder time deciding who should be given the Player of the Year award than I did this year.  I considered literally six different golfers (I’ll get to them all), five of whom had career years, before finally deciding that Inbee Park’s career year was the most special of all.  This despite the fact that two of the ladies she beat won Majors and Park did not, and two other shattered age records.  But when Inbee got going on her amazing streak the latter 2/3 of the season, she ignited the kind of suspense I haven’t seen since the salad days of Jiyai Shin, Se Ri Pak and Grace Park.  Namely, it seemed like she would be in the hunt every single week, and the only question was, would she win or have to settle for a second or third place?

Park had two wins on the LPGA tour, which tied her with Jiyai Shin and Na Yeon Choi for tops among the Koreans.  Those two ladies won Majors, while Inbee did not.  Park did, however, win the Evian Masters, which will be a Major in 2013, and which is without question the most important non-Major on tour.  She had 12 top tens, and ten of those were top fives.  Besides her two wins, she had six second place finishes, a third and a fourth.  Simply put, she was a golfing machine.

Inbee at the Evian Masters

Her consistency enabled her to make $2,287,080 in 2012, the most money any Korean golfer has ever made on the LPGA in a single year, and the first time a Korean has broken the 2 million dollar mark.  She also led the league in scoring and won the Vare Trophy, such an important honor that it earns a player a Hall of Fame point.   If she had been a little more lucky, and a little more clutch, she might have walked away with several more wins.  She was the top pro at the Canadian Open, behind only the teen amateur Lydia Ko.  She had a great chance to win in Taiwan and at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, leading both events for a while before falling back to the field on Sunday.  She also lost in a playoff at the Manulife.  Even the British Open was not out of reach on the final day, although she struggled far too much early to have had any chance of catching Shin there.  Still, she managed a solo second.  She had 9^th place finishes at the LPGA Championship and US Women’s Open for three total Major top tens.

Statistically, she was extremely strong.  She led the league in both putting statistics, was second in rounds under par and rounds in the sixties, third in birdies, and second in Player of the Year points.

Inbee won the Vare Trophy in 2012 for low scoring average

Park had one of the most blistering runs of great golf in some time.  Her ten straight top tens included two wins, four runner-up finishes and one third place.  After missing the top ten for the first time in four months, she had a runner-up finish in her next start, and another two events after that.

As if all those runner-up finishes were not enough, Inbee also had at least four runner-up finishes on the Japanese tour, three of those in Majors.  If Park would have found a way to close better, it’s not inconceivable she could have won all of those Majors, so close were her near misses.

Inbee was all smiles when she returned to Korea in July following her Evian win

To end her season, Inbee played on the Korean team in the Korea-Japan team competition.  She won both her matches and earned the MVP award.  She finished the year ranked 4^th in the world.

Inbee credited her fiancé, who is also a golf teaching pro, with her newfound confidence on the course (and no doubt happiness off of it).  It was a career year in every way for the sixth year pro, and thus she earns the Seoul Sisters Player of the Year award!

Inbee was the MVP at the Korea-Japan team competition

Other Nominees:

Na Yeon Choi

Na Yeon Choi

The difference between Na Yeon Choi and Inbee Park was razor-thin in 2012.  The main knock against Choi is that she was not nearly as consistent as Park; in most statistical categories, Park had the edge.  However, Choi had a string of brilliant accomplishments of her own.

Like Park, Choi won three times in 2012: twice on the LPGA tour and one other non-tour event.  But each of Choi’s wins were just a little more impressive than Park’s.  Choi won the biggest event of them all, the US Women’s Open, for her first Major, and capped her season with a triumph at the CME Group TitleHolders Tour Championship, one of the most important non-Majors on tour.  A few weeks after that, she won the Swinging Skirts in Taiwan, a Silly Season event that attracted most of the top golfers in the world, including all six of the finalists for this award.  Those are three pretty impressive wins; I would say it was the most impressive slate of victories of any of my six nominees for this award, including Inbee Park.

Na Yeon in Taiwan in December, site of her third win of 2012

Choi did not win any post-season awards, although she did well in several statistical categories.  Thanks to her big win at the CME, she finished second on the money list with $1,981,834, which was the second highest season ending money total ever accumulated by a Korean (behind only Inbee).  She only finished 5^th in scoring average, however, well behind Inbee, and 3^rd in Player of the Year, one slot behind Inbee.

Choi takes the mike

Choi managed 10 top tens on the year, with six top fives; besides her two wins, she had three seconds and a third.  Those are great numbers, but again all are behind Inbee’s numbers.  One of her runner-up finishes came against Inbee at the Sime Darby.  At the Majors, Choi had the win at the Open, an 8^th at the Kraft, and a 13^th at the British.  She was disqualified at the LPGA Championship (see ‘Most Controversial Moment’ for more details).

Choi finished the year ranked 2^nd in the world.  Like Inbee, she played at the Korea-Japan team event and was undefeated.

Choi’s Major win and more impressive tournament victories were almost enough to offset Park’s statistical superiority and greater consistency, but those things coupled with the Vare and record Money list total were enough to edge the award towards Inbee Park.  It was certainly a banner year for Na Yeon Choi, however, and she seems as if she is on the cusp of becoming the decisive best Korean golfer of her generation if she keeps improving as she has been.

Choi had a career year in 2012

Jiyai Shin

Jiyai Shin

Shin was troubled by injuries all year.  It made it difficult for her to get any kind of roll going.  But despite playing fewer events than the other pros in this list, she still achieved two wins, including a Major, and for a while looked likely to win the Vare Trophy (in the end, she did not play enough rounds to qualify).

Shortly after coming back from an operation, Shin found herself tied for the lead with a round to go at the Jamie Farr,  She faded to 7^th there, but just a couple of events later, she was in the final group at the CN Canadian Open.  She finished third, with a front row seat to Ko’s historic win – they played in the final group together.  Shin was finally hitting her stride, though, and she won her next event, the Kingsmill Championship, after besting Paula Creamer in a ridiculously long 9 hole, two-day playoff.  Arriving in Britain later than almost anyone else, Shin played the British Open superlatively, crushing the competition by nine shots for her second straight win less than a week after the Kingsmill victory.

This is what Jiyai looked like after her hand operation in June. Three months later she had another Major trophy.

So Shin did have a Major win, unlike Park, but only two world wins in 2012 to three for Inbee.  Statistically, Shin managed 8 top tens in 18 events, with three thirds on top of her two wins (but no seconds).  She also led the scoring average race for a while before fading to 4^th, and wound up 7^th on the year ending money list with over $1.2 million earned (in 4 – 6 fewer events than most of the other top players).  She was also in the top five in greens in regulation and sand saves and topped the league in percentage of rounds under par.

Like Choi and Inbee, she also won both her matches at the year ending team match, and at the Swinging Skirts, she finished third.  She was in the hunt until nearly the end but made a crucial late mistake to miss the playoff won by Choi.

Shin’s numbers were clearly not as good as Choi or Park, but what makes her notable was that she did all these things despite struggling with injuries much of the year.  Even with that factored in, however, I have to say that Inbee Park outdid the Final Round Queen in 2012.

Jiyai with her Kingsmill trophy

So Yeon Ryu

So Yeon checks out some of the displays at the USGA Museum

I talked about So Yeon’s season in detail in the ‘Rookie of the Year’ award.  As far as this award goes, Ryu has a lot of positives in her favor.  She had only two worldwide wins, one on the LPGA, one on the KLPGA, and no Majors.  She finished behind Choi and Park and just ahead of Shin on the money list, and ended her season with a world ranking of #7.

What was really impressive about Ryu’s season was that she not only managed more top tens (16) than any other Korean, and more top fives as well, but that she did all that as a rookie who had a. never played most of the courses before and b. was dealing with all the challenges that come with moving to a new culture and finding your way there.  On top of which, she was also finishing her college degree simultaneously.

So Yeon in July

She also had some impressive stats: 2^nd in putts/GIR (behind Inbee), 2^nd in scoring average (again behind Inbee), 3^rd in rounds under par and rounds in the 60s, 2^nd in birdies, and 5^th in Player of the Year.  All these results are very impressive, but she was still almost always behind my choice for Player of the Year, Inbee Park.

So Yeon at the Korea-Japan team Competition

Like the other three LPGA players above, Ryu also won both her matches at the Team competition against Japan (she was teamed with Inbee on the first day).  She finished tied for third at the Swinging Skirts, tied with Shin and behind Choi but ahead of Inbee.

Admittedly the Rookie of the Year had a much harder challenge in 2012 than Inbee Park or Na Yeon Choi in terms of getting used to her new country.  But despite that, and despite her amazing consistency, So Yeon was probably a win or two short of snagging this award away from Park.

It was tough choosing between these four! At the Team Competition, they gave them ALL the Best Player award!!

Lydia Ko

Lydia Ko

Even though Inbee Park won this award, it’s very possible that the real Player of the Year was a golfer who shattered not one but two age records, won some of the biggest events in her sphere, and garnered more attention than any other ethnically Korean golfer in 2012.  I’m not arguing that Lydia Ko is better than any of the four LPGA golfers I’ve already mentioned – she’s not, at least not yet – but in terms of awesomeness, Ko’s 2012 campaign is hard to match.

I already talked about her in some detail in ‘Best Teen’, but to summarize, in 2012 she became the youngest person ever to win a professional event and the youngest to win an LPGA event.  She also won the biggest amateur event in the world, the US Amateur, and drubbed the top amateurs in the world at the biennial Women’s World Team Amateur Championship.  Even if she had done nothing else, that is an incredible run of golf.  In addition, she was the low amateur at the US Women’s Open and Ricoh Women’s British Open, won the Australian Ladies Amateur, and played several other LPGA events, grabbing top 20s in most of those.

Hyo Joo Kim and Lydia Ko at the Swinging Skirts last December. Kim got the better of Ko that week, although neither finished in the top ten

So why isn’t she the Player of the Year?  To be honest, I’m waffling even now.  But on the biggest tour, she managed only one really great performance, the win in Canada.  Her other LPGA events were certainly solid, especially for a girl her age, but nothing that would stun the masses.  Her amateur wins were against women and girls that, for the most part, she outclassed (exceptions noted for the Jutanugarn sisters and Hyo Joo Kim).  Was she perhaps so good as an amateur that we took her for granted a bit?

Maybe.  I’m certainly open to hearing arguments as to why I’m wrong!  But for now, I’ll take Inbee Park’s career year over Lydia Ko’s career year.

Lydia meets the press in Korea in August

Hyo Joo Kim

Hyo Joo Kim

See ‘Best Teen’ for more details about this superstar in the making.  Like Ko, she was great at amateur events, but where Kim shone in 2012 was playing against the big girls in the pro events.  She ended up winning four professional events last year on three different tours.  That’s more than any of the other women on this list managed.  And she wasn’t even a pro until October!  But she finished behind Lydia Ko more often than ahead of her, and was not able to win the LPGA event that would have put her over the edge (though she came close at the Evian).

In sum, it was a great year for the Korean ladies, perhaps the greatest in recent memory.  From amateurs setting records to wins in most of the big events in the world (three Majors, the big US amateur events, the world team championship, the Korea vs. Japan battle), the Koreans were making their mark everywhere in 2012.  Congratulations to them on a job well done, and good luck in 2013!

And the Winner Is: So Yeon Ryu

So Yeon Ryu in August, 2012

Without any question, the top rookie of 2012 was KLPGA star turned LPGA rookie So Yeon Ryu.  Ryu earned her card for the 2012 LPGA tour in the most audacious way imaginable: by winning the biggest women’s golf tournament in the world, the US Women’s Open.  Only one other Korean had ever earned a tour card by winning a Major before, and that golfer, Jiyai Shin, not only easily won Rookie of the Year the following season, she very nearly won Player of the Year as well.

So Yeon and her US Women’s Open trophy

Ryu accomplished a lot in her four seasons on the Korean tour: she chalked up seven wins and finished inside the top five on the money list several times.  But interestingly, she had never won a KLPGA Major, nor so much as a single post-season award (other than the fan-chosen ‘Most Popular’ award).  She had not even been able to claim the Rookie of the Year on the KLPGA, finishing second in 2008 to fellow teen star He Yong Choi.  Shin, by contrast, had been a dominating presence on the Korean tour, winning over twenty times including multiple Majors, and bagging the KLPGA Player of the Year award every year she was eligible.  So there was a question about how Ryu might do on the LPGA in 2012.  No doubt talented, capable of great things, but would it be enough to see her win the Rookie of the Year against some decent competition, including among others teen wunderkind Lexi Thompson and two-time US Women’s Amateur champ Danielle Kang?

Last year, I had this to say about Ryu and her chances:

“With a pedigree like that, the expectations on Ryu will be high. But she should be able to meet them if she can acclimate to the rigors of living and traveling on the LPGA tour… her consistency should make her tough to beat for the LPGA’s top award nonetheless.”

And indeed, it was her consistency that stood out the most in her amazing rookie season.

What we perhaps didn’t realize was just how much losing the Rookie of the Year on the KLPGA in 2008 still bothered her.  She spent some time discussing this during her Rookie of the Year acceptance speech in November.  She talked about how she obsessed about what small missed opportunities might have cost her the prize: what if she had made that extra birdie putt, or one or two more par saves?  Amazingly, she even began to doubt her overall excellence as a golfer.  Granted, she was only an 18-year-old, so it’s not so hard to believe she would overdramatize what had happened.  But even as a 21-year-old several years later, her near miss still haunted her.  Realizing that the LPGA would be her last chance to claim a Rookie prize, she dedicated herself as fully as ever before to attaining her goal.  Perhaps this uber-motivation led to the incredible results she achieved.

Ryu takes aim at the competition in 2009, her breakout year on the KLPGA tour

Simply put, Ryu was sensational from the moment she laced her golf shoes up in January to the time she took them off for the final time in 2012 in December.  She started her year with two straight runner-up finishes.  Indeed, she came within a missed three-foot putt of winning her very first event as an LPGA member, the Australian Women’s Open.  She also shot an eleven under par 61 during that stretch.  And that was just the first two events she played.

The great play continued and continued.  After narrowly missing a top ten at the HSBC Women’s Champions in Singapore, she grabbed a tie for 4^th at the weather challenged RR Donnelly, her first event played in America in 2012.  In April, she notched two more 4^th places, and added a 5^th place at the Sybase, narrowly missing the final four in this match play event.

So Yeon in July of last year

Some of her other highlights include shooting a final round 64 to narrowly miss making a four-way playoff at the Manulife Financial in June; a fifth place in Taiwan and another in Malaysia; and finishing her year with 6 straight top tens after missing her only cut of the year at the Canadian Women’s Open (alas, the only time I saw her live!).

Interestingly, she did not have a great year in the Majors, at least to start.  She did make all four cuts, however, and her Major performances got progressively better.  She managed a tie for 14^th in her title defense at the US Women’s Open, followed by her only top five finish in a Major in 2012, a fifth at the British Open.

Ryu had a number of good chances to win on tour, but only grabbed one trophy.  That came at the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic in August.  Ryu was tied for the lead going into the final round, but shot a blistering 9 under par 62 to obliterate the field by 7 strokes.  She thus became only the fifth LPGA golfer in history to shoot that low a final round to win a tournament; the other four who did it all later became Hall-of-Famers.

So Yeon Ryu

Besides the Australian Open, her best chances to win in 2012 came at the Safeway Classic and the CME Titleholders.  At the Safeway, she engaged in a mano-a-mano battle with Japanese star Mika Miyazato for much of the back nine, but just couldn’t catch a break when she needed it and wound up tied for 4^th.  At the CME, she caught third round leader Na Yeon Choi and was tied with her for a while on the back nine, but made a couple of critical mistakes coming in, allowing the rock-steady Choi to grab the two shot win.

In all, So Yeon had a staggering 16 top tens on the LPGA tour in 2012, 12 of which were top fives, in 24 events played.  That tied for the most top tens on tour in 2012.  To put this in perspective, only a couple of Koreans have ever managed more top tens in a single season (the record is 20 by Se Ri Pak), and none of them beat her total as a rookie, not even Pak.  She was 6^th on the money list with $1.2 million earned and second in scoring average with a 70.30 average (only Vare Trophy winner Inbee Park was better).  She was top ten in several other statistical categories, including

• Putting: 29.25 (9^th)
• Putts / GIR at 1.75 (2^nd)
• Rounds under par: 57/86, 66.3% (3^rd)
• Birdies: 356, 4.14 average (2^nd)
• Player of the Year: 131 (5^th)

Her final score in the Rookie of the Year race was an astounding 1,448 points, which gave her a 631 point margin of victory over Thompson and more than a thousand point gap over the third ranked rookie.

So Yeon with her Rookie of the Year award

And as if that weren’t enough, she also found the time to return to Korea to play in her sponsor’s event, the Hanwha Finance Classic, which she won for her eighth career KLPGA victory.  In December, she won both of her matches at the Korea-Japan Team competition to help lead Korea to a rout in that event, and she finished tied for third at the Swinging Skirts event in Taiwan, which pitted her against most of the top women golfers in the world.  She ended the year ranked 7^th in the world according to the Rolex Rankings, a big improvement over where she was at the start of the year, when she was outside the top 20.  Oh yeah, and she did all this while completing her college degree at Yonsei University!

In every measurable way, So Yeon Ryu more than made up for falling short of the KLPGA Rookie award with her scintillating performance in 2012, on both the LPGA and elsewhere.  Congratulations to her!

So Yeon poses with Korean film star Tae Hee Kim after winning the Hanwha Classic

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Rookie to Watch in 2013

And the Winner Is: Hyo Joo Kim

Lotte won the Sponsor lottery for Hyo Joo Kim when she turned pro in October

The collection of Korean and Korean American players who will be rookies on the LPGA in 2013 is not a particularly large, impressive or deep one.  There is one exception, and we’ll get to her in a moment.  But without any question, the rookie who looks poised to make the most noise in 2013 will not be playing full-time on the LPGA, but rather will be starting her professional career on the KLPGA.  That golfer is Hyo Joo Kim.

I’ve already talked about Kim and her amazing 2012 achievements in the ‘Best Breakthrough’ and ‘Best Teen’ awards, so I won’t repeat them here.  But as far as the Korean tour goes, remember that she already won one event as a 16-year-old amateur and contended as long ago as when she was 14.  Based on that alone, she looks ready to become a top player on the KLPGA.

Add on to that the fact that she has already won in her rookie season, capturing just her second event as a tour member (and her second career KLPGA win) when she won the Hyundai China Ladies Open in December (this event counts towards the 2013 season).

In my opinion, it will not be so much a question of whether Kim will win Rookie of the Year.  I honestly expect, barring injury, she will do that easily.  The real questions are: how many wins will she achieve?  Will she win Player of the Year, becoming the first rookie to do that since Jiyai Shin?  And will she win or seriously contend in one of the LPGA events she will doubtless play in 2013?  Whatever happens, it ought to be seriously fun to watch this major talent develop throughout the year!

Hyo Joo won her second KLPGA event played as a full tour member. What took her so long?

Other nominees:

Esther Choe

Esther Choe is a Korean American golfer who looked primed to become a star when she turned pro in 2007.  But she accomplished almost nothing out of the gate, and it took her until last year to start showing signs of the great golfer many thought she could become.  She won twice on the 2012 Futures Tour and finished atop the tour money list and earned Player of the Year despite only playing 6 events.  Choe also played on the Ladies European Tour, where she managed four top 20s and one top five.  Of all the Koreans and Korean Americans joining the tour this year, she seems the most likely to take the LPGA’s top Rookie honor.

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Most Improved Player

And the Winner Is: Je Yoon Yang

Shhh! Je Yoon Yang, KLPGA Player of the Year, is in the house!

In 2010, Je Yoon Yang was an 18-year-old newly minted professional playing on one of the KLPGA’s developmental tours.  She graduated to the big leagues in 2011, where she had an unexceptional first year, finishing 44^th on the money list with three top tens.

In other words, there was little reason to expect that Yang was about to become one of the best players on the KLPGA tour.  Yet in 2012, she won the Player of the Year award, topping stars such as Soo Jin Yang (who has yet to win it) and Ha Neul Kim (2011’s top player).

The first sign that this was going to be a special year for Yang happened in mid-May, when she notched a fifth place finish at the Woori Investment Championship.  The next week, she made it all the way to the final four at the Doosan Match Play and finished fourth.  A very good couple of weeks for Yang, but it still left her far away from the big names on tour.

When she got back to the tour from the summer break, Yang really started the fireworks.  First came the Nefs Masterpiece, where she took a huge lead and, despite a final day struggle, held on for her first career win.  With her third top five finish in her pocket in 2012, she now found herself among the top players on tour.

Je Yoon takes the mike at the site of her first career win, the Nefs Masterpiece

She finished 7^th the next week, 11^th after that, and notched a 9^th at the year’s second Major, the KLPGA Championship.  For the rest of the year, she never finished outside the top 15, and more often than not was in the top ten.  She moved to the top of the Player of the Year standings, and it was not until Ha Neul Kim, the 2011 Player of the Year, put on a strong run after winning the Rush & Cash Charity Championship that Yang was knocked from the top spot.

Still, Yang was tenacious, notching a third at the Hite Cup, the year’s third Major, and a second place at the year’s final Major.  The pitched battle between her and Kim continued when she made yet another top ten, her ninth of the season, at the year’s penultimate event.  As they entered the final tournament, the ADT-Caps, only a few points separated Kim from Yang for Player of the Year.  Basically, whoever finished ahead of the other one at the ADT would probably win the top prize.

Yang not only finished ahead of Ha Neul, she won the tournament, her second of the season, to capture the Player of the Year crown in style.  She also finished fourth on the money list with over 400 million won in earnings, and third in the scoring average race with a 71.74 average.

Je Yoon’s second win came at the year ending ADT-CAPS. The win also clinched Player of the Year for her.

Almost no one knew Je Yoon Yang’s name at the start of the KLPGA season.  But going into 2013, she will be one of the names to watch.  Whether she can duplicate her performance remains to be seen, but no doubt she was the Most Improved golfer of 2012.

Other Nominees:

Inbee Park

Inbee Park had a career year, winning twice on the LPGA, once on the JLPGA, leading the LPGA money list and winning the Vare Trophy.  Park had always been one of the better Korean golfers in the world, but without question, 2012 was her best year ever.  In 2009, the year after she won the US Women’s Open, Park finished 50^th on the money list.  She improved to 11^th in 2010, and was 31^st in 2011.  So, she has never been exactly bad, and in some years she was very good.

Still, the improvement in every facet of her game in 2012 was something to behold.  She ended the year with 12 top tens, her career best, and became the first Korean to ever earn more than $2 million in a single season.  She had multiple wins in a single season for the first time in her career, and had 6 additional second places.  And she did that while having the lowest scoring average of her career and playing a decent schedule in Japan, where she also won once in 2012.

Indeed, Inbee without question asserted herself as a proto-superstar with her brilliance, particularly with the putter, where she was easily the best in the league.  If it weren’t for the fact that she had already had some brilliant seasons in the past, and even in 2011 was a fairly good golfer, she might have been more than just a runner-up in this category.

Bo Mee Lee

Bo Mee with her first JLPGA win of 2012

Bo Mee Lee had somewhat of a strange season in 2011.  She had just graduated from the KLPGA and planned on playing full-time on the JLPGA.  But the tsunami in March changed her plans, and she found herself gravitating towards the KLPGA again.  She did manage to win the low Scoring Average on tour, but did not have a win in 2011.

In 2012, particularly the end of the season, Lee returned with a vengeance.  She won her first career Japanese title at the Daikin Orchid Ladies in March, beating no less than two-time money list leader Sun Ju Ahn in a playoff.

Jump to November, and Lee was playing in the LPGA’s Mizuno Classic, the lone LPGA event taking place in Japan.  Lee shot a blistering second round 64 to take the lead, and held onto that lead much of the final round.  Alas, she was not able to win, as Stacy Lewis made up a seven stroke deficit to take the crown.  But Lee finished second in a tough field, just a stroke behind Lewis.  It was a good omen for the rest of the season.

The very next week, Lee won again, taking the Ito En Ladies tournament for her second win of the season.  And she wasn’t done yet, for a few weeks later, she won the season ending Ricoh Cup, the year’s final Major, to move to second on the year ending money list.

Bo Mee Lee

Bo Mee’s improvement from 2011 was impressive, but she misses out on the award because, after all, she is Smile Candy, the 2010 KLPGA Player of the Year, and not exactly a player unused to being near the top.  It was a great step up from 2011, but nothing like the one Yang accomplished.

Char Young Kim

Char Young tosses the first pitch at a Korean baseball game

Char Young Kim finished in the top 20 on the KLPGA money list with five top tens.  Certainly not a bad performance.  But in 2012, she won three times, the most of anyone on tour, with seven total top tens.  She finished third on the money list as well.  It was a giant step up for the player who was named ‘Most Popular’ by the fans.  But she was certainly a better player in 2011 than Yang was, so she was not the Most Improved.

This trend is influencing golf equipment and styles are becoming more diverse so they are attractive to the female golfers. It may be difficult for some people to find women’s golf equipment at their golf suppliers store in their neighborhood. When you are able to find some women’s golf equipment it is likely that the selection is not very large and there isn’t much to see. This can be very frustrating when you can’t find the equipment you will need to play well on a regular basis. Because of this, many people have found it useful to shop on the internet and use that as a resource for finding a larger selection of women’s golf equipment.

The best selection for women’s golf equipment is definitely on the internet. Just use your search engine and you will find many different varieties and styles of women’s golf equipment than you can find in most golf stores. Golf clubs and other types of golf equipment are the tools that are necessary in order to connect the player to the game of golf. Being able to find them makes a person feel included in the game they love. It is just the same for any sport. That’s why more and more people are benefiting from shopping online to find the right equipment and different styles for women to enjoy the game of golf.

Just because there is not a big fan base for women’s golf, doesn’t mean women should have to suffer not being able to find the equipment they need and want. When you are in a sporting goods store, you notice a huge difference in the amount of men’s golf equipment and the women’s section. Most women players are solving this problem, buy shopping online where they can see and choose from an extensive inventory they can order.

The biggest benefit of shopping online is not just the improved selection, but the prices are much more competitive than in the stores when shopping for women’s golf equipment. This is critical for those who are on a tight budget and need to be conservative in their spending. Because there are so many stores online, you can benefit from the very competitive prices while shopping and comparing items that a woman will need to enjoy the game of golf.

The internet is revolutionising the way that consumers are looking for and buying their golf equipment. It can be done leisurely and it is possible to compare size, colors, etc. and make the order, process the payment and have the products at their door in a few days.

And the winners are: the KLPGA Golfers

The ladies on the KLPGA tour have become known as much for their fashion sense as their talent.  Whether it is stars like Ha Neul Kim, Soo Jin Yang or Char Young Kim, or lesser known players like Yu Na Park, the ladies of that tour seem to have an endless supply of sartorial surprises up their sleeves (when they are wearing outfits that even have sleeves!).  Below are a few notable looks from the 2012 season!

Ha Neul Kim has been one of the fashion stars on the KLPGA since joining the tour in 2007.  This green spotted shirt really stood out among her many noteworthy outfits in 2012.

Ha Neul Kim

Nobody does trophy chic like Ha Neul!

Ha Neul with her only KLPGA trophy of 2012, the Rush & Cash Charity Classic

Ha Neul rocks an American-flag-motif outfit.  Which is odd considering she’s Korean, but it still looks snazzy!

Ha Neul Kim

Chae Young Yoon won the Best Dresser award in 2012.  This is an award voted on by the fans in Korea.

Chae Young Yoon

Char Young Kim won the Most Popular award in 2012, another fan-voted award.  She gets a lot of love from the press, too.  Here’s a striking photo from one of her many golf magazine photo shoots.

Char Young Kim

On the course, Kim favors simpler outfits.  Here’s a good example of what she brings to the table.

Char Young Kim dressed for cold weather

Soo Jin Yang is the budding artist with a love of bright colors.  Pink is her favorite.  This outfit could be called ’50 shades of pink’.

Soo Jin Yang

Hyun Hee ‘Honey’ Moon is always a fashion standout on tour.  Love the hoodie!

Honey Moon with a short skirt and hoodie. Is it hot or cold?

Mirim Lee won the Korean Women’s Open in 2012.  This striped shirt looks great on her.

Mirim Lee

Don’t forget the graduates!  So Yeon Ryu left the KLPGA to play full-time overseas in 2012, but returned in time to win her 8th KLPGA event.

So Yeon Ryu returns to play in Korea

Hee Kyung Seo is another former KLPGA superstar who played in Korea a couple of times in 2012.  I call this photo, ‘Get me to the Green on Time’.

Hee Kyung Seo hurrying to the green at the 2012 Hite Cup

Yu Na Park is an up and comer on tour, but shows that even the lesser known KLPGAers like to look good on the course.

Yu Na Park

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Most Touching Moment

And the Winner Is: Grace Park and Mi Hyun Kim Retire

The 2012 season saw the retirement of not one but two of the most important Korean golfers in the Seoul Sister Era.  Besides the Hall-of-Famer Se Ri Pak, the two most significant golfers in the early days were undoubtedly Mi Hyun Kim and Grace Park.  Both ladies called it a career in 2012, but their influence on the tour will not soon be forgotten.

Grace Park was once upon a time on her way to being the second greatest Korean golfer of all time.  She had a sterling amateur career in the late nineties, winning just about every important event and accolade she could win.  Once she turned pro, she trounced the Futures Tour to easily earn an LPGA card, then joined the big tour in 2000.  Amazingly, it took her a couple of years to really hit her stride, but once she did, the top finishes came fast and furious.  In 2002, she finished 6^th on the money list.  She moved up to 3^rd in 2003 and 2^nd in 2004.  She accumulated 6 wins in total including one Major.

Grace meets the press in Korea after her retirement

But just as quickly as her superstar days began, the injuries hit her, and for the rest of her career, she struggled to even stay healthy enough to compete.  She never again won an event after 2004, and rarely even managed top ten finishes.  Entire seasons were lost to physical setbacks.

Finally, in 2011, she felt as though she was healthy enough to give it one more run.  But though the flesh was willing, she no longer had it in her to play golf at the level that once was so easy for her.  And so, she decided early in 2012 to call it quits.  She made it official at the LPGA Championship, which became the final event of her illustrious career.  Freed from the weekly grind of golf, she married her longtime sweetheart in November of last year and retired to Korea after that.

Grace waves to the crowd during her final round at the 2012 LPGA Championship

Mi Hyun Kim was perhaps the most unlikely star of her generation.  Barely five feet tall, she was never going to win long drive contests.  She also had an extremely unorthodox swing, with the club practically pointing straight down at the top of her swing motion.

But Kimmie was all heart, and it was fire and fantastic short game that allowed her to win eight LPGA tournaments during her career.  She never had the great highs Pak or Park had, never won a Major, but she was consistent longer than Grace, and had 106 top tens in her career, more than just about any Korean golfer in history other than Se Ri herself.

Kimmie contemplates her future during a quiet moment at her final event

Perhaps the most memorable moment in Kim’s career came after her final LPGA win at the SemGroup Championship in 2007.  The week before, the nearby town of Greensburg, Kansas, had been hit by a category 5 tornado and almost completely wiped out.  Kim donated half her winner’s check, $100,000, to help the town recover.  She had never been to that town, nor knew anyone who lived there.  She just thought it was the right thing to do.  It was a glimpse into the generous spirit of the quiet Kim that especially stunned those in America who barely knew her despite her success here.

Mi Hyun greets the press during her final week on tour

Kim’s final event was the Hana Bank tournament in her home country.  The injuries she had were still so bad that she could not play well at all, but the sponsors gave her one last exemption to allow her to play in front of the home fans one last time.  Now that she is retired, she will be dedicating her time to raising her young son and running a chain of Mi Hyun Kim golf centers, in the hopes of nurturing the next generation of Korean talent.

So long, Mi Hyun!

We’ll miss you, Grace and Mi Hyun!  Good luck in your future endeavors!

Other Nominees:

In Kyung Kim becomes Special Olympics Ambassador, donates other half of her Ochoa check to that charity. (June at time of ShopRite)

When IK Kim won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in 2010, she vowed to give her entire winner’s check to charity.  She gave half of it to Ochoa’s charity, and in 2012 finally decided where to give the other half: the Special Olympics.  But she intended to do more than just give money.  She has been appointed a Special Ambassador by Special Olympics, and will be involved in all sorts of activities involved with the charity, including appearing at the organization’s international competition when it takes place in Korea in 2013.  Congratulations again to IK for continuing to be an amazing role model both on and off the course!

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Best Teen

And the Winner Is: Lydia Ko

This was a season where two phenomenal ethnic Korean teenage amateurs (one from Korea, the other from New Zealand) set record after record on the golf course.  Picking between them to choose the better one is not exactly easy, but in the end, Lydia Ko had the higher highs, and so wins our award as the Best Teen golfer of 2012.

Lydia Ko visits Korea in August, 2012

The 14-year-old Ko started the year as the world’s top female amateur, and by the end of the year, she was even more decisively the top amateur than she had been at the start.  It didn’t take her long to make her mark in 2012.  In late January, she became the first New Zealander in more than 20 years to win the Australian Match Play Amateur Championship.  A week later, she played the New South Wales Open, a professional event on the ALPG tour.  She had nearly won this event the previous year, but a final-hole three-putt cost her the title.  No such problem in 2012: after blowing away the field in round 2, she cruised to an easy win, becoming the youngest person in history to win a professional event, male or female.  Amazingly, her record did not even last the year, as a Canadian girl two days her junior won a two round professional event on the Canadian Tour a few months later.  Still, what Ko had done was a foreshadowing of things to come.

Lydia with the trophy she won as the youngest to ever claim a professional win

She played a few more professional events after that, including her first LPGA event, the Australian Women’s Open, where she finished a respectable tied for 19^th.

In the summer, she traveled to the US and finished as the low amateur at the US Women’s Open.  After that, she lost in the semifinals of the US Girls Junior championship, but followed that with a win at the US Women’s Amateur, arguably the most important amateur event in the world.  She was the second youngest to ever take that title.

Another huge win: Lydia with the US Women’s Amateur trophy

Just two weeks later, Ko made more history when she held off a field of LPGA superstars to win the CN Canadian Women’s Open in Vancouver.  Her victory made her not only the youngest by more than a year to ever win on the LPGA tour, but also the first amateur to claim a pro title since Joanne Carner in 1969.

A few weeks after that, Ko was the low amateur at the British Women’s Open.  She then concluded her amazing summer by smoking the field at the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship in Turkey.  She won the individual honor there, beating the second place golfers by six shots.

Other Nominees:

Hyo Joo Kim

See ‘Best Breakthrough’ for more information about Kim’s amazing 2012 season.

Hyo Joo kicks back in August

In almost any other year, what Hyo Joo Kim accomplished in 2012 would have easily swept her to the honor of Top Teen, but this year, Lydia Ko was just a little better and a little younger.  Still, check out the things she did that elevated her to the status of the Next Big Thing in Korean Golf:

• In April, she dominated the KLPGA’s Lotte Open, beating a field of KLPGA pros by nine shots.  It was one of the most impressive wins ever achieved by an amateur on the KLPGA.
• The next week, she played the Lotte Championship on the LPGA tour and finished 12^th.
• In May, she notched a fifth place finish at another KLPGA event.
• In June, she shot a final round 61 to come from behind and win the Suntory Ladies Open on the JLPGA tour.  She was the youngest player to ever win on that tour, breaking Japanese legend Ai Miyazato’s record.
• In July, she finished fourth at the Evian Masters on the LPGA tour.  Had she won, she would have been the first amateur to ever have won events on four different professional tours (the Evian is a joint LET/LPGA event).
• In August, she finished medalist at the US Amateur in the stroke play portion, beating even match play champ Lydia Ko.  But she lost in the second round of match play.
• In late September, Kim led the Korean team to the title at the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship.  It was the first back-to-back titles for a country in ages.  Kim finished fourth in the individual standings, although she was tied for first with Ko after two rounds before Ko stepped on the gas to win by six.
• Kim also won a pro event on the Taiwan LPGA sometime before turning pro.
• Kim turned pro in October; her first pro event was the KEB Hana Bank Championship, which was also Mi Hyun Kim’s final event.  Hyo Joo finished tied for 25^th.
• In December, Kim finished in the top 15 at the Swinging Skirts event in Taiwan, beating Ko.
• A few weeks after that, Kim won her first KLPGA event as a tour member when she captured the Hyundai China Ladies Open.  It was her fourth pro win of 2012.

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Best Hot Streak

And the Winner Is: Inbee Park 10 straight top tens

See also ‘Great Performance that came up short’ for more details about Park’s great run.

Inbee poses for a candid shot in August, 2012

When Inbee Park caught fire in June of last year, no one else in golf was hotter.  She started her streak of ten straight top tens at the LPGA Championship with a tie for 9^th.  Before that week, she had not managed even a single top ten in her first nine starts of 2012.  In her next nine starts, she only finished outside the top 4 once.  She grabbed two wins, four seconds, a third and a fourth.  She finally missed the top ten with a 15^th place finish in Korea in late October, four months after her streak had started.  During the stretch, she made over $1.8 million.  To put this in perspective, only a handful of Korean golfers have ever earned more than that in an entire season.

And the Winner Is: Na Yeon Choi, US Women’s Open, 12^th hole, round 4, from the weeds

Na Yeon hits the shot of the year

The winner of this category was not only one of the most brilliantly executed shots of last year, it was also the most important, as it stemmed a potential meltdown by Choi, allowing her to right the ship en route to her first Major win.

The scene was Sunday at the US Women’s Open in Blackwolf Run.  Choi had captured a commanding lead by virtue of her epic third round 65, and had to find a way to get into the house in one piece to claim the biggest prize in women’s golf.  She had done well enough on the front nine, but an out of bounds drive and triple bogey on the tenth hole had made things more interesting than she would have liked.  She rebounded with a birdie on 11, but after hitting the fairway on the 12^th hole, things went south again.  Her approach was too long and landed in some very tall weeds left of the green.

Choi inspected the shot for several moments, considering her options.  For a while, she gravitated towards taking an unplayable, but any drop from those weeds was probably still going to end up in a bad place.  And so, hip deep in tall grass, she stepped up to her ball and hit a superlative pitch shot, gently easing it out of the grass and onto the green roughly twenty feet from the hole.

This could have been a disastrous moment not only in her week, but in her career.  She might have taken a swing at the ball and not moved it at all, given the lie.  But instead, she set herself up for a fairly routine two-putt bogey.  She went one better than that by actually sinking the tricky double breaking par save moments later.  As far as great shots at crucial moments go, Choi’s pitch from disaster should rank among the best the Korean lady golfers have ever accomplished.

Other Nominees:

Na Yeon Choi, Round 4, 13^th hole tee shot, US Women’s Open

The second greatest shot Choi hit in 2012 came only a few minutes after the Shot of the Year winner.  Choi stepped up to the tee on the par 3 13^th hole.  Water lined the right side of this hole, so what a player needed to avoid at all costs was hitting the ball right.  But her tee shot went in that direction, and it looked like a disastrous mistake.  But then the luckiest break of the year: the ball hit the rocks near the water, and instead of bounding right, bounced straight, hit the rocks again, then rebounded onto the green.  She made par.

This was a great shot to be sure, but because luck played far more of a role here than it did on the 12^th hole pitch, it only earns runner-up status in the Shot of the Year contest.

Jiyai Shin, 16^th hole bunker shot from 40 yards to two feet in terrible rain and weather, Round 4, Ricoh Women’s British Open

Jiyai Shin during the final round of the British Open

The weather was horrendous much of Sunday at the Ricoh Women’s British Open.  Shin was in no danger of losing by the time she reached the 16^th hole and put her second shot into a bunker some 40 yards short of the green.  Still, what she did there was something special.  She stepped into the tricky bunker and hit a gorgeous sand shot that rolled to a stop barely a foot from the hole.  A 40 yard bunker shot is among the hardest of golf shots under normal conditions.  To hit such a great one in the kind of weather she was contending with, at the end of a very long 36 hole marathon day, was truly extraordinary.  Even the commentator called it ‘magical’.

Inbee Park, Sunday, 18^th hole, Sime Darby, from bunker to just off green

Inbee Park had seized control of the Sime Darby, but had a tough time closing out the win.  On the 18^th hole, her drive went right, and her rescue shot ended up in a bunker.  She still had to worry about water fronting the green if she went for it; but if she hit a safe shot, she was opening up the door ever so slightly for Na Yeon Choi to steal the win.  Making her situation even more dicey was the fact that she had muffed a fairway bunker shot a few holes earlier, hitting the lip of the trap and watching as the ball rolled back to her feet.

Nonetheless, Park went for it, hitting a great shot that cleared the water, landed on the green and rolled off to the fringe.  Two putts later she was the Sime Darby champion.

Amateur Seo wins Bentley with hole-in-one at Hanwha Classic, but…

Amateur Yeun Jung Seo made a hole-in-one on  the 17^th hole during round 2 of the KLPGA’s Hanwha Finance Classic.  The prize?  A Bentley worth over $200,000.

Only one problem: Seo is an amateur and cannot accept prize money or other compensation.  So, no Bentley!  But she’ll always have the memory at least.

Amateur Yeon Jung Seo made an ace, but could not accept the prize that came with it

Inbee Park, mega long par save, 14^th hole, Evian Masters

Inbee was a putting machine at the 2012 Evian

Inbee Park put on a putting clinic at the 2012 Evian Masters, but her greatest moment came on the 14^th hole.  She had struggled to get to the green and was left with a fairly long putt to save par.  Stacy Lewis, Hyo Joo Kim, Karrie Webb and Shanshan Feng were all breathing down her neck.  But Park made the unlikely par save, and proceeded to birdie her final three holes to claim her first win in four years.

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Round of the Year

And the Winner Is: Na Yeon Choi, 65, round 3, US Women’s Open

Na Yeon Choi during the most amazing round of golf of her career

This year’s US Women’s Open was especially important to the Seoul Sisters because it took place at the site where Se Ri Pak ignited the Korean golf revolution, Blackwolf Run.  Pak’s win there in 1998, as a 20-year-old, fired the imagination of thousands of young girls, including the woman who won the Open in 2012, Na Yeon Choi.

Choi made her own history in round 3 by shooting a 7 under par 65 to grab the tournament by the throat.  It might very well have been the greatest round ever shot by a Korean golfer in a Major.  She managed 8 birdies and one bogey on a course that was ripping the best players in the world to shreds.  Amy Yang was the only other player who even shot in the 60s – she had a 69.  The average score for the day was 77 – so Choi managed an unbelievable 12 shot edge over the *average* score on the course.  She set the course record, and only a few golfers had ever shot a lower round in Open history.

In the future, golf historians might very well point to this round as the moment when Na Yeon Choi ignited a second golf revolution in Korea!

Other Nominees:

Jiyai Shin, 64, round 2, Ricoh Women’s British Open

Shin’s 64 in round 2 of the Ricoh Women’s British Open allowed her to grab a lead she never relinquished again.  It was a superlative performance, the women’s course record, and even topped anything the men were able to do when they played the course in more benign conditions at their Open.  As great as it was, though, it still wasn’t at the same level of incredible as Choi’s round, and it didn’t beat the round average as decisively as Choi’s round did.  Also, the conditions Shin faced were not as tough as they would be the rest of the week.  But without question, what Shin did in round 2 was awe inspiring in its own right.

So Yeon Ryu, RACV Australian Ladies Masters rd 2, 61

So Yeon Ryu’s 61 in round 2 of the RACV Australian Ladies Masters, in one of her first competitive rounds of 2012, announced that she was ready to take her game to another level in 2012.  Although she did not win the tournament in the end, she did rack up an incredible number of great golfing performances in 2012, and it all started with this wake-up call to the rest of the world.

So Yeon Ryu, 62, final round, Jamie Farr

Ryu was tied with three other strong Korean golfers when the day started on Sunday.  By the time she was done, she had lapped the field, thanks to a record tying final round 62.  See ‘Most Dominating Performance’ for more details!

Hyo Joo Kim, 61, final round, Suntory Ladies Open on JLPGA

Hyo Joo on the prowl at the Suntory event in Japan

In June, Hyo Joo Kim played in and won her first Japanese LPGA event, the Suntory Ladies Open.  She had to come from behind in the final round, and boy did she deliver!  She shot an insane 11 under par 61 on Sunday, the lowest score in JLPGA history, to claim the win by four shots.  In so doing, she became the youngest player to ever win on that tour, breaking the record by former world’s #1 Ai Miyazato.  And she still wasn’t 17 years old yet.  If the earlier win on the KLPGA tour had gotten her noticed, the Japanese win ignited a bidding war, with five major companies all clamoring to become her main sponsor whenever she turned pro.

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Most Controversial Moment

And the Winner Is: Na Yeon Choi DQed at LPGA Championship for failing to sign scorecard

The title says it all.  Na Yeon Choi failed to sign her scorecard and was disqualified from the year’s second Major.  How did she respond?  By winning the next Major she played.  That’s how you react to adversity!

Other Nominees:

Sun Young Yoo, improper drop at CME Group TitleHolders

Sun Young Yoo

Sun Young Yoo started the week at the year’s final event by shooting a 66 and grabbing a share of the lead.  In round 2 she had a more up and down day, with plenty of birdies and a few really bad holes.

Perhaps the worst moment came late on the back nine.  She hit her drive into some trouble and decided to take a drop after an attempt to hit it out of the stuff resulted in barely moving the ball.  She dropped, got to the green and wound up with a double bogey.

But, as it turned out, she had done an illegal drop and got an extra penalty stroke.  A helpful television viewer pointed out that Yoo had not held her ball high enough when she dropped the ball.  The rule states that you must hold the ball at shoulder height when dropping, and Yoo’s ball was closer to her hip than shoulder.  Doubtless she got no benefit from the shorter drop, but rules are rules.  One controversy from this incident was that it was a television viewer calling in that caused a rules infraction to be called.  If Yoo were not being televised at the time, she probably would have gotten away with what she did.  This definitely suggests that those who get televised are held to a stricter standard than those who don’t, although how exactly to address this dilemma, short of greatly increasing the number of officials watching the action, is unclear.

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Tournament of the Year

And the Winner Is: US Women’s Open

Se ri Pak and So Yeon Ryu during media day at the US Women’s Open

For nearly a year before the event, there was a growing excitement over the 2012 US Women’s Open.  For only the second time, the event was to be staged at Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Wisconsin.  The first time it was played there, of course, was 1998, and the winner, Se Ri Pak, toughed out the longest tournament in tour history, 90 holes, on one of the toughest courses the women had ever played, to beat an amateur of the same age, Jenny Chuasiriporn of Maryland.  Pak’s win galvanized the entire country of South Korea, which was going through rough economic times.  Simply put, the country needed a hero, and Pak arrived at the right time to give the nation a jolt of confidence and happiness.  Literally overnight, the country fell under the spell of Pakmania, and thousands of little girls picked up golf clubs with the hopes of becoming the next Se Ri Pak.

One of those little girls was nine year old Na Yeon Choi, who had actually already been playing the game competitively even before Pak’s win.  But still, Se Ri’s victory gave Choi a whole new way of looking at the sport she was playing, a whole new set of goals to shoot for that had never even occurred to her before.  One of those goals was to someday play the US Women’s Open at Blackwolf Run, and perhaps even win it.  And of course, in 2012, she did get her chance to play there and did take home the title, while her idol Pak greeted her on the 18^th green to congratulate her.  Na Yeon Choi’s dream came true in the biggest way possible, and it made for a gripping storyline, even for those not as familiar with the backstory of Se Ri and her progeny as the Koreans are.

There were other storylines, too, of course.  Se Ri had inspired the 2011 champion, So Yeon Ryu, and accompanied Ryu to Blackwolf Run for media day.  Ryu got her first look at the course and even played a practice round with Se Ri following along.  In tribute to her hero, Ryu took her shoes off at the 18^th hole to pose for a photo emulating Pak’s iconic shot from that same course location in ‘98.  Although Ryu would not be a factor in the 2012 Open, she still finished tied for 14^th in a respectable title defense.

So Yeon Ryu doffs her shoes and socks to emulate the iconic moment when Se Ri Pak did the same thing at the ’98 Open

Then there was Se Ri Pak herself, returning to the place of her greatest career moment.  Even getting to Wisconsin was an adventure.  Pak injured her shoulder in a freak accident a couple of months prior to the Open and was forced to miss several events while the doctors debated about her injury and how best to treat it.  For a time, it looked like Se Ri would have to miss the Open; then, she suddenly improved and played the LPGA Championship a month before the Open.  Amazingly, she even led that event for a couple of rounds before backing up on the weekend.  In the end, Pak did make it to Kohler, and even though she did not win, she managed a tie for 9^th and got a chance to watch Choi take home the crown.

So Yeon Ryu and Se Ri Pak during media day for the 2012 US Women’s Open

Lastly, Choi’s adventures on the weekend made for compelling viewing.  She trounced the field on Saturday with one of the greatest rounds ever shot in a women’s Major.  It looked like she had the thing wrapped up until the back nine on Sunday, where a roller coaster four holes nearly did her in.  But she showed steely resolve in overcoming adversity (see ‘Shot of the Year’), and claimed the year’s third Major.

The 2012 US Women’s Open was the most eagerly anticipated event for the Korean golfers in 2012, and it did not disappoint!  With luck, it will return there once more before Pak retires, but if not, then she at least managed one great return to the site of her most significant achievement.

The champion

Other Nominees:

CN Canadian Women’s Open

The US Women’s Open was the year’s most important event for the Koreans, but the Canadian was arguably the most electric.  Lydia Ko’s record shattering win garnered attention far beyond the ghetto that women’s golf news is usually relegated to.  As far as the Koreans go, you not only had Ko attracting enormous galleries, but a sweep of the top five, with Inbee Park finishing second following a holed pitch shot on the final hole, and three more Koreans finishing tied for third (Na Yeon Choi, Chella Choi and Jiyai Shin).

It’s time once again for my annual round-up of the best and worst in the previous year’s Korean women’s golf action. I call them the Seoulie Awards. Without further ado, here’s who I chose as the winners for 2012!

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Best Start to the Season

And the Winner Is: So Yeon Ryu (2 straight runner-up finishes in Australia)

So Yeon Ryu from a magazine spread in late 2011

So Yeon Ryu has been an internationally important golfer in the women’s game ever since she won the gold medal at the 2006 Asian Games as a 16-year-old, but she really burst onto the scene in the pro game with her win at the 2011 US Women’s Open. Following that win, she largely returned to Korea for the rest of the year, only occasionally surfacing at international events (like the Evian Masters).

At the end of the year, however, she prepared to move to the US tour full-time as a 2012 rookie. Her first step in that direction was appearing at the 2011 Swinging Skirts event in Taiwan in December. In a field stocked with most of the top golfers in the world, she managed a tie for second. It was a good omen.

So Yeon Ryu at the 2011 Swinging Skirts

Ryu trained in Australia during the off-season with her coach, who is Australian, and a new caddie, also from down under. Her first event of the new year was the RACV Australian Ladies Masters, an event on the Ladies European Tour. She took little time establishing herself as a force, shooting a first round 66 to vault into a tie for second, just a shot out of the lead. But it was in the second round that she seized control of the event, blistering the course with a record tying 11 under par 61 that consisted of 12 birdies and a bogey. Twelve birdies in 18 holes is some kind of awesome golf! Suddenly, all eyes were on the 21-year-old Major winner as she sat with a four shot lead with two rounds to go.

The rest of the event was a slow struggle to hold onto that lead as several others made runs at her. She wound up with a 69 in round three and maintained a three shot cushion, but in the final round, her lead slipped away, and she finally fell into a tie for the lead on the final hole. There, she was unable to make birdie, and Dutch woman Cristel Boeljon did. Despite leading for about three days, in the end Ryu was only able to manage a tie for second. But the result still showed she was ready to rock in 2012.

So Yeon Ryu

The next week she again played in Australia, and once again put herself squarely in sight of a win. The event was the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open, the opening event of her LPGA career. Sure enough, by the end of the second round, thanks to two great days of play, Ryu found herself in the final group matched against her old rival Hee Kyung Seo, whom she had beaten at the US Open the previous year. In round 3, neither golfer had a great day, but they still both stayed within small distance of the new leader. But in round 4, the two great golfers rebounded, and as they reached the 18th hole, they both were tied for the lead and had a chance to win the event.

Both players hit the green in regulation, leaving themselves ~20 foot birdie putts for the win. And both golfers three putted, falling back into a six way playoff that was eventually won by American Jessica Korda. For the second straight week, So Yeon had a win in her grasp and lost it on the final hole. But two straight runner-up finishes, coupled with the second place at the Swinging Skirts, was a mighty fine way to start her year!

So Yeon misses a crucial putt at the Australian Open

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Biggest Disappearing Act

And the ‘Winner’ Is: Song Hee Kim

It’s hard to fathom what has happened to Song Hee Kim in the past couple of seasons, although injuries may be at least partly to blame for her performance in 2012. In 2010, Kim was undeniably one of the best Korean golfers in the game. Although she had not yet won on tour, she managed 15 top tens that year, earning more than $1.2 million. In 2011, however, her results plummeted. She made only two top tens and earned only $350,000.

Still, even that total was far better than her 2012 season. Last year, Kim made an abysmal $10,872, with no top tens (her best finish was a tie for 33rd). She played no events after June. Given that she has a medical exemption allowing her to maintain tour membership for 2013, it looks like she is struggling with injuries. With luck, she will recover from whatever ails her and will soon return to the top of the game.

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Best Korean Confrontation

And the Winner Is: Na Yeon Choi vs. So Yeon Ryu, CME Titleholders

Na Yeon Choi and So Yeon Ryu were two of the top Korean golfers on tour in 2012. Going into the final event of the 2012 season, the last two US Women’s Open winners had earned well over $2 million between them, and both occupied spots in the top ten on the money list. Ryu had already clinched the Rookie of the Year award, and told interviewers that if she were to win the CME, she would do the ‘Gangnam Style’ dance on the final green (the story became more intriguing when Ryu revealed that she was actually good friends with ‘Gangnam’ originator Psy, and had even played multiple rounds of golf with him in the past). Choi, meanwhile, was looking to buy a house the following week, and told the press that the huge first prize check at the CME, the second biggest on tour in 2012, would make that a much easier task. Choi had already won the first largest check on tour when she claimed the US Women’s Open title, but if there were any chance she was going to share the wealth with her fellow players during the CME, her play during the week sure didn’t suggest it.

Na Yeon tosses the ball during the second round of the CME

In round one, Ryu shot a 66 to grab a share of the lead, while Choi was just behind her with a 67. So Yeon struggled to an even par round 2, but world’s #2 Na Yeon Choi shot a 68 to move to 9 under total, just a shot out of the lead. Round 3 saw both great stars bring their A Games: Choi moved into the lead at 12 under, with Ryu third at 10 under. This result put both of them in the final group on Sunday, and set up a great duel for the crown.

The battle lived up to its potential. Choi made a big mistake early – a double bogey on the third hole – to let Ryu into the proceedings. But she corrected that in a big way with a brilliant approach on the par 5 5th, setting up a short eagle putt which she made to earn those two dropped strokes back.

The rest of the day, the two battled at the top, trying to get the advantage. They were tied for a while on the back nine. Ryu did not play the 14th well, culminating in a missed short par save that gave Choi a one shot lead.

So Yeon posed for pics with fans after her final round

The crucial moment in the match came on the 16th hole, a drivable par 4. Ryu went for the green, ending up about thirty yards short. Choi chose to lay up. The pin was on the top plateau in the three-tier green, and Choi hit a brilliant approach from around 80 yards to three feet. The pressure was on Ryu, and she couldn’t deliver. In hindsight, it was Choi’s decision to lay up to a comfortable yardage that probably won her the tournament. Choi went on to win by two strokes.

So, no Gangnam dance from So Yeon, but Choi comfortably earned a nice house: in just her two LPGA wins alone, she made over a million dollars, and her year’s total of nearly $2 million was the second highest total money ever earned by a Korean golfer in a single season.

Na Yeon won the battle against So Yeon and took the $500K first place check

Other Nominees:

Na Yeon Choi vs. Inbee Park, Sime Darby

Na Yeon Choi took a share of the first round lead at the LPGA’s only event in Malaysia, the Sime Darby, and extended her lead to 2 shots at the halfway point. But on the back nine during round 3, Inbee Park went crazy, moving up to 11 under, just two back of Choi. This set up a great battle between the US Open winner and 2012 Money List leader in round 4.

Park played brilliantly on Sunday and moved into a several stroke lead. She seemed to have the thing in the bag when suddenly the wheels started coming off. Somehow she rescued par on the par 5 16th when she putted in from the fringe; that came after she put her drive in the bunker, then hit the lip of the bunker on her second shot and didn’t even get it out of the sand. On the 17th hole, she nearly hit her tee shot in the water, ended up with a plugged lie in deep rough, and still somehow walked off with a bogey. That might have been trouble, except that Choi got what might have been the worst break of the season when HER tee shot was plugged in a greenside bunker on the same hole. It was just about the worst lie you could imagine: not only plugged, but right under the lip to boot. Choi was forced to take an unplayable and made a double bogey in the end.

So Park had the win in the bag, right? Nope, she still made it interesting. On the final hole, she hit her drive in the woods, then botched her escape shot by putting it into a fairway bunker. She was looking at a long third shot over water from the sand. That’s when she finally did what she had to do, striping a superb third shot over the water onto the green, where it rolled to the fringe. From there it was a simple two putt for the win.

Inbee Park with her second LPGA trophy of 2012 at the Sime Darby Malaysia

Ha Neul Kim vs. Je Yoon Yang, Doosan Match Play quarters

Je Yoon Yang came from absolutely nowhere in 2012 to win the KLPGA Player of the Year award. At the Doosan Match Play, she was matched against the 2011 Player of the Year, Ha Neul Kim, in the quarterfinals. Yang took an early lead and never trailed, eventually winning their match 4 & 3. Yang would go on to win the Player of the Year at the tour’s final event, while Kim finished second in that race, but repeated as the money list leader and won her first Best Scoring Average title as well.  But their season-long battle for supremacy was nicely foreshadowed in the Match Play event.

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Best Korean Finish

And the Winner Is: CN Canadian Women’s Open

Lydia gets the victory soak at the Canadian Women’s Open. Water only, please, she’s just 15!

Lydia Ko made history by winning the 2012 CN Canadian Women’s Open. She is a Korean-born New Zealander, and the first amateur to win on the LPGA in more than forty years.

Lost in that amazing achievement is the fact that the Koreans had a phenomenal week in Vancouver. Finishing second after a hole-out from the fairway was Inbee Park, who collected the first place check thanks to Ko’s amateur status. Na Yeon Choi and Chella Choi (no relation) and Jiyai Shin finished tied for third, while Korean-Australian Haeji Kang and Korean American Jane Rah finished tied for 9th. A sweep of the top five by women of Korean ethnicity! Even in this day of brilliant Korean achievements, that’s a pretty awe-inspiring result.

Other Nominees:

Koreans at the Majors

Koreans won three of the four Majors contested in 2012, and the Evian Masters, which will be a Major in 2013. 2012 was the first year where Korean golfers won more than two Majors in a single year. Even more amazing, in all three Major wins, Koreans finished 1-2. At the Nabisco, Sun Young Yoo beat In Kyung Kim in a playoff. At the US Women’s Open, Na Yeon Choi dominated, but Amy Yang was second place by several shots. And at the Women’s British Open, it was a blowout win for Jiyai Shin, the largest margin of victory (9 shots) since the event had become a Major. But sitting in second place was another Korean, Inbee Park.

Jiyai Shin holds one of the three Major trophies won by Koreans in 2012

Jamie Farr Toledo Classic

The Jamie Farr has always been a great tournament for Korean golfers, and 2012 was no exception. Coming into the final round, four Koreans were tied for the lead – So Yeon Ryu, In Kyung Kim, Hee Kyung Seo and Jiyai Shin – with two more Koreans, Chella Choi and Inbee Park, just a shot back. Ryu ended up torching the field by seven shots; Choi and Park wound up tied for third, Inky tied for 5th with Korean American Jennie Lee, Shin tied for 7th, and Seo tied for 9th. Seven of the top 10 were either Korean or Korean American.

Manulife Financial LPGA Classic

The playoff at this event pitted American Brittany Lang against three Koreans: Hee Kyung Seo, Inbee Park and Chella Choi. Lang wound up winning, but the other three tied for second, with So Yeon Ryu just missing the playoff and tying for fifth. Four Koreans in the top six!

It’s a new year, which means filling in that new calendar!

Most of our membership is aware that our 2013 Tournaments Calendar has been released for some time now. As you plan your month (and year), we thought we would make life a little easier for you and list our upcoming events as well as provide you with a handy pdf calendar.

Get your pens ready…

January 10-11: DIV I Executive Club Tournament at Chaparral and Sunrise (Palm Desert)

January 14-15: DIV II Senior Championship at Palm Desert Country Club (Palm Desert)

For a schedule of 2013 Tournaments, click here.

Keep up with the USGA Tournaments and Championships with their 2013 calendar.

What are you doing this month? Share below or on our Facebook page!

Picking out what to wear as a female golfer is almost more fun than golfing! That being said, it’s always pretty hard finding fashionable/not too girly that it looks like the woman is out there just to strut her stuff. Us women are in it to play golf, it’s just a plus that out there, there are fashionable golf clothes.

If anyone has any women’s golf clothing recs for me, please share!

Christmas Special

Christmas is a mere six days away, and it is time to buckle down on filling up that empty space under the Christmas tree!

Monday we gave you some sweet homemade treats that you can dress up and gift to your family and friends. But today we bring you the must-buy list for all the golfers in your life, inspired by Golfsmith.

For the golf lover, everyone knows that accessories and the latest technology is a golfer’s best friend. Here are some of the latest and greatest ideas out there:

Top Accessories:

1. Whimsical head covers
   

   Pink head cover by Callaway Golf

2. Magnetic ball markers that clip onto a golf cap
3. Insulated cooler bags that come with pockets to store balls, tees and other valuables.
4. New golf spikes
5. Range Finder
   

   iD tech range finder

Clubs:

The technology for golf clubs is always changing. The gift of a hybrid club (or two—why not spoil your loved one?) can make the game more fun for seasoned golfers. The newer iron sets now include an array such as the 4 hybrid, 5 hybrid and the 6-iron to the sand wedge. For the latest golf clubs, check out Golfsmiths collection of women’s hybrid clubs.

Extravagant Gifts:

Golf Cruise—Golf Ahoy

If you really want to spoil your loved on today, a 10 day Hawaiian Golf Cruise is the way to go. Golf Ahoy is featuring a 10 day Hawaiian Cruise that will circle the Hawaiian islands and includes golf shore excursions. The cruise features numerous dining and spa options.

For more information on the cruise line, click here. For more articles featured on Golf Ahoy, visit our women’s online golf site!

The Grand Princess Cruise Ship.
Picture Courtesy of Golfahoy.com

Nothing says Christmas time like homemade Christmas cookies (and candies, of course!).  For all of you last minute shoppers (and avid cookie eaters and bakers), we have made a list of the perfect gifts that you can give without having to leave the comforts of your home. These delicious cookies make wonderful gifts for golf buddies, instructors, team mates, coaches and the like! Don’t forget to spread the Holiday cheer to all that are near!

• Classic Golf Bag Sugar Cookies: A classic twist on the traditional sugar cookie. Grab the golf bag cookie cutter (for the very low, low price of .49 cents) at Sur La Table and spread the Holiday cheer to all your friends on the course! Click the link for the delicious Martha Stewart Sugar Cookie Dough Recipe. 

• Gingerbread Trees: Gingerbread cookies but with a nature twist on them. Pair them with the golf bag sugar cookies and you have a delicious treat for all the golf lovers in your life! Gingerbread Trees with Lemon Icing Recipe. 
• Holiday Shortbread Cookies:  Everybody loves the traditional shortbread cookie. Try this buttery traditional recipe and add some colorful sugar for decoration (we are thinking blue and white for the WSCGA, no?). Click here for the Holiday Shortbread Cookie Recipe.

Last week was the 2012 WSCGA Annual Meeting, held at the Glendora Country Club! The meeting presents the 2013 slate as well as presents awards, delicious food and a wonderful time. Visit our Facebook to view more pictures of our award recipients, board members and more good fun!

Jody Nickel presenting Foundation Club Achievement Award to Birnam Wood Golf Club representatives, Diane Wootton and Maylo Harding — at Glendora Country Club.

Jody Nickel with guest speaker, Barbara Moxness

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Pro of the Year award presented to Nikki Gatch by WSCGA President, Jody Nickel — at Glendora Country Club.