SPORTS
Page 8 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
October 17, 2016
Se Ri Pak ends Hall of Fame career in front of home fans
INCHEON, South Korea (AP)
— Se Ri Pak ended her Hall of
Fame career in tears in front of
her adoring home fans in the
Ladies
Professional
Golf
Association
(LPGA)
KEB
HanaBank Championship.
Overcome at the end of the
sunny afternoon at Sky 72, Pak
cried nearly throughout a
retirement ceremony on the 18th
hole. The Little Angels children’s
choir sang, players wore “SE RI”
hats, and farewell messages were
played in a video montage.
“A lot of emotion going on
through my mind,” Pak said.
It mattered little to the fans
and players, many of them drawn
to golf by Pak, that she shot an
8-over 80 and was tied for last —
15 strokes behind leader Alison
Lee — before withdrawing.
“It wasn’t easy out there
today,” Pak said.
Hampered by left shoulder
problems, the 39-year-old Pak
said in Phoenix in March that
this season would be her last and
she stepped away as planned
after the first round of the tour’s
lone South Korean event.
“It wasn’t a sudden decision to
retire, but I think it will take time
for me to absorb the fact that I
will no longer be competing,” Pak
said. “Today I was really happy
and grateful to see so many fans
out there. It really moved me. I
really wanted to show them my
appreciation. I couldn’t figure out
how during the competition, but I
was very moved by the open
retirement ceremony. I was very,
very extremely happy”
Pak won 25 LPGA Tour titles
— the last in 2010 — and five
majors, two of them during a
rookie season in 1998 that gave
women’s golf its biggest boost
since Nancy Lopez. The youngest
PAK-MANIA. Se Ri Pak of South Ko-
rea takes a selfie during her retirement
ceremony at the Ladies Professional Golf
Association KEB HanaBank Championship
2016 tournament at Sky72 Golf Club in
Incheon, South Korea. Pak ended her Hall
of Fame career in front of her adoring
home fans. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
player to be inducted into the
World Golf Hall of Fame when
she was enshrined in 2007 at age
30, Pak won 14 times on the
Korean LPGA and captained
South Korea’s Olympic team —
with Inbee Park winning the gold
medal — in Rio.
Pak last played on the tour in
July, also shooting an 80 to miss
the cut in the U.S. Women’s
Open.
Playing alongside defending
champion Lexi Thompson and
Chinese star Shanshan Feng in
the final group, Pak bogeyed the
first hole and four of the first six.
She bogeyed the first five holes on
the back nine, birdied the par-4
15th, and closed with three
straight pars.
“When I reached the 18th, I
was on the tee box, and I felt like I
couldn’t make the shot,” Pak said.
“I think I cried all throughout the
18th hole. Actually there was a
flood of emotions that I really
didn’t expect to feel. I didn’t
expect myself to feel this way.
“From the fairway of the 18th
hole and the green I could see the
gallery and the fans and there
was just a lot of love and support.
I think it was one of the best
moments. I’ve had a lot of
victories in my career, and I have
to say it was one of the best,
happiest moments of my career.”
She managed to hit a good
drive and a layup on the par-5
18th, then left her wedge 15 feet
short. She watched Feng’s putt
stay to the right, and had a better
line, but still missed on the right
edge. Thompson then missed —
also to the right — from three
feet, setting off a flurry of camera
clicks as the attention turned
back to Pak — 18 years after she
sparked the rise in South Korean
and Asian women’s golf.
“Pak-mania” ruled in the
Ocean Course.
She matched her best round of
the season marred by a torn
labrum in her left shoulder.
“I actually injured [my]
shoulder back in February and I
didn’t know what was wrong,”
Lee said. “My swing was
changing and all that and I
definitely wasn’t performing the
same way I used to. It hurt a lot, a
huge portion of my mental game.
I was struggling a lot on the golf
course not only because of my
injury, but because I was scared. I
was scared of the ball. I didn’t
know where it was going to go.”
After a birdie try on 16
horseshoed out, the UCLA
student made a 12-footer on the
par-3 17th and got up-and-down
for birdie on 18 after nearly
reaching the green in two.
In-Kyung Kim, the winner two
weeks ago in China, was second
along with fellow South Korean
player Jeong Min Cho, Sweden’s
Anna
Nordqvist,
American
Lizette Salas, and France’s
Karine Icher.
Evian winner In Gee Chun and
U.S. Women’s Open champion
Brittany
Lang
shot
69.
Thompson was at 70 with Brooke
Henderson, the Canadian teen
playing the third of six straight
weeks in Asia.
South Korea’s Ha Na Jang, the
winner last week in Taiwan for
her third victory of the year, had
a
71.
Feng
and
Ariya
Jutanugarn, a five-time winner
this year, shot 73. Top-ranked
Lydia Ko was tied for 63rd at 75.
summer of ’98, especially after
she won the U.S. Women’s Open
in a 20-hole playoff against
amateur Jenny Chuasiriporn.
When Pak returned to South
Korea that fall, she had to be
hospitalized for exhaustion.
Television cameras even came
into her hospital room to give the
latest news.
Pak was a catalyst for more
young players to believe they
could compete on the strongest
circuit in women’s golf. Today, six
of the top 10 players in the world
and 22 of the top 45 are South
Korean.
“I think if we had no so-called
Se Ri Kids, the Korean golf scene
would be quite different today,”
Pak said.
Lee shot a 65 to take a three-
stroke lead. The 21-year-old
American birdied the final two
holes and four of the last six on
the Jack Nicklaus-designed
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