Uniting The Kims, Parks and Lees With The Joneses and Smiths
By Lisa D. Mickey
The Duramed FUTURES Tour already has played 10 of its 18 tournaments this season and for those of you who follow this tour, you know that some of the world’s best talent gets its start right here in the LPGA’s minor league.
As a Tour staff member and career journalist who now writes about these young professionals for the Duramed FUTURES Tour’s website, allow me a moment to vent about a matter of worry. Something that has been gnawing my gut for several years now is what I perceive to be an increasingly overt and seemingly socially acceptable habit that many golf fans have for criticizing one certain racial demographic.
How many times have I heard someone jokingly ask, “Which Kim, Park or Lee is leading this week?” It’s as if it is OK to make fun of the South Korean players who are so prominent in women’s professional golf. It’s as if these players are viewed as one single entity and not the individuals they are. It’s as if it’s perfectly fine to practice bigotry when it applies to women in golf.
For me, however, many of these South Korean players are some of the people I most admire in the game. And if I were asked which player made the biggest impression on me for overcoming personally challenging circumstances, I would cite South Korean Se Ri Pak in her unbelievable 1998 season. She was a rookie that year who won four LPGA tournaments and two major championships AND learned to speak English well enough by the end of the season to stand before a packed hotel ballroom and give a speech as the LPGA’s top rookie. That was a player who not only wanted to win and used her great talents to do it, but also did it with an entire nation scrutinizing her every move, a troupe of 60 or more Korean media following her every step, and countless young girls back home in Korea seeing a better life for themselves and their families if only they could follow in her footsteps.
When I hear so many voices droning on about the “Parks, Kims and Lees,” I wonder if those same people have a problem with Latin American players in Major League Baseball, or Russians in women’s tennis, or Kenyans in long-distance running, or Czechs in hockey? What’s the difference? And why wouldn’t individuals from like regions or demographics follow others who have found success? What if no other African-Americans had followed Jackie Robinson to baseball or Charlie Sifford to golf? Arguably, these talented people enhanced their respective games and broadened the appeal of their chosen sport to a wider range of fans. In the case of the South Koreans, they helped globalize the sport of golf and even opened much-needed revenue streams to Western interests.
Admittedly, LPGA and Duramed FUTURES Tour leaderboards are often dominated by names of South Korean players, which begs the question: Where are the Americans? But then again, there are now many Americans named Park, Kim and Lee. As a matter of fact, a number of top American women players are, and have long been, Asian-American -- such as the LPGA’s Pat Hurst and the Duramed FUTURES Tour’s Kim Welch, who are Japanese-American, Leta Lindley, who is Vietnamese-American, Tiffany Tavee, who is Thai-American, and even the Duramed FUTURES Tour’s top rookie and bona-fide All-American teen talent Vicky Hurst of Florida, who is Korean-American. Hurst and Tour alumnae Jane Park and Christina Kim -- two Californians – are all three Korean-American, but each player is true red, white and blue. Don’t believe it? Ask anyone who played with Christina Kim on the U.S. Solheim Cup team.
As someone who has spent a number of years writing about these players, I struggle to understand why the South Koreans have been singled out for criticism. On the Duramed FUTURES Tour, I worked with Ju (Birdie) Kim to improve her media interviewing skills two years before she won the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open. I spent time talking to our 2004 Player of the Year Jimin Kang about so many dreams and goals in her life off the golf course. I watched Seon-Hwa Lee quietly surprise everyone with how easily she handled her champion’s speech at the Duramed FUTURES Tour tournament she won en route to becoming the Tour’s 2005 Player of the Year, and a year later, how she amazed all with her calm grace as the LPGA’s top rookie in 2006. I discussed with five-time Tour winner Song-Hee Kim, our 2006 Player of the Year, the task of handling petty player jealousies when she had what everybody else wanted – the top ranking on the Tour’s money list. And I watched a whirlwind of talent in the form of sweet-swinging Angela Park and eventual 2008 U.S. Women’s Open champion Inbee Park blow through the Duramed FUTURES Tour on their respective journeys to the LPGA. Every single one of these players demonstrated class as human beings and complete determination and perseverance as young professional golfers.
Like so many others playing alongside them, these Koreans weren’t just one face. They were many faces with many stories and many views of life along the way. I saw them trying to fit in, to speak English, to talk slang (such as the day that Song-Hee Kim told me she was “just chillin’”). I felt a pang of sadness when one player told me she wanted surgery to make her “eyes rounder.” I was stunned at another player’s surprise when she asked if I thought she was pretty and I honestly replied, “Pretty? You are beautiful.” And I remember the pride displayed on the face of Sung Ah Yim, now on the LPGA, after completing her first TV interview. She smiled a smile I will never forget, and then her dad took pictures of her, of me, of the two of us together and of the TV cameraman. That little interview in Ohio was a milestone for her and it helped me realize more fully these players’ basic fears and basic desire for accomplishment that go far beyond pars and birdies. It made me see how they want to represent themselves, their families, their country and their golf tour. Just as it is with their golf games, what they want is to execute flawlessly and to somehow fit in.
While I agree that each player who comes to the United States to earn their living playing professional golf should make it a priority to learn English – even incrementally – I don’t discount the difficulty. It is hard, but it is necessary. I tell our South Korean players to practice their English just as they would practice their wedge shots and to prepare themselves for the LPGA. And truthfully, I see more of a willingness by these players to learn English than I ever have. Last year, one player motioned me over to the practice green and put her iPod earplugs up to my ears so I could hear the English lesson she was taking as she rolled her putts.
Sure, there are a lot of Parks, Kims and Lees on both the LPGA and Duramed FUTURES Tour and they have changed the complexion of the women’s game. These players have shown that they can add a language, adjust culturally, and they can even live out of a van with their families and drive for 20-plus weeks around the United States to small tournament towns whose only Asian residents are the ones that run the corner Chinese restaurant.
But these players can’t change their names or the color of their skin. They are who they are. They are among the best players in the world and they have made the game better. They have made Karrie Webb, Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer and Cristie Kerr work harder. They have tested future LPGA stars Stacy Lewis and Allison Walshe on the amateur and collegiate levels. They have earned the respect of their Anglo and Latin-American peers on the golf course at every level. And they have made their steady progression without complaining. They just worked and worked and worked to get better.
And while it is essential that every professional golfer find a balance between work and leisure time in her life for the sake of good health and longevity – something about which many South Korean players are still learning in this Western culture -- we all have taken a lesson about the tenacity and work ethic these players bring to the game. They give it everything they have and demonstrate unrelenting focus to accomplish their goals even if, seemingly, their only avowed fans are an ocean away.
Lisa D. Mickey is the senior writer of new media and communications manager of the Duramed FUTURES Tour. She formerly covered the LPGA for Golf World magazine and was a senior editor at Golf For Women magazine. She has written about the Duramed FUTURES Tour since 2003. She may be reached at lisa@duramedfuturestour.com.
