Se Ri Pak will always be remembered as one of the most important pioneers of Asian golf. With her victory at the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open, she inspired the wave of Korean women who have all but taken over the dominant positions on the Fe the LPGA Tour.
Pak remains the role model. In fact, when she qualified for the World Golf Hall of Fame, at just 29 years old and with a record of 24 LPGA Tour victories, including five majors, she became the youngest person to be elected to that honor (junior Tom Morris, who died at the age of 24, was elected to the Hall of Fame after his death in 1975).
Pak’s most influential victory came at Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Wisconsin. When it looked like she had no chance, sending the ball into the water on the 18th on the final day of the tournament, Pak, knee-deep in water, masterfully pulled the ball out of the water and into the fairway, then holed a 10-meter putt to earn a playoff spot against amateur Jenny Chuasiriporn. The next day, Pak got off to a bad start in the playoff round but made up ground until she was tied on the 18th hole. Finally, on what was already the 21st hole of the playoff, she holed a 6-meter birdie putt to give her the victory and make her the youngest U.S. Women’s Open champion.
Pak also won the McDonald’s LPGA Champioinship that year, earning her LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year honors and becoming, along with Juli Inkster, one of only two women to win two tournaments in their first season as pros on the LPGA Tour.
Pak would go on to win a total of two LPGA Champioinships, and she also won a Women’s British Open in 2001. She also won the 2003 Vare Trophy for the lowest average score of the season, the first Asian player to do so.
In 2007 she won the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic for the fifth time, becoming only the third woman in LPGA Tour history to win the same tournament five times. Her playoff record of five wins and no losses is the best in the LPGA in terms of undefeated victories.
Pak also measured herself against the men in the field and competed in a men’s professional tournament, in 2003 at the SBS Super Tournament on the Korean Tour. She finished tenth and thus became the first woman to make the cut in a men’s professional tournament since the legendary Babe Didrickson Zaharias in 1945.
Pak was born on September 28, 1977 in Daejeon, South Korea. Blessed with powerful legs, Pak was a track star before being introduced to the world of golf at the age of 14 by her father, a former professional baseball player in Korea and a demanding parent.
The training regimen she designed for her daughter included racing up skyscraper stairs to the top floor and running barefoot in the snow. As an amateur, the teenage Pak won thirty tournaments. She then turned professional in 1996, winning six of fourteen tournaments on the Korean Tour and finishing second in seven others. In her first six seasons on the LPGA Tour, Pak finished second on the money list four times and was third in another.
Despite all the rigor she endured, Pak has always been known for her broad smile and good nature. However, the pressure of representing South Korean golf took its toll. In late 1999 she was hospitalized for exhaustion. In 2005 Pak completely lost her game, and her best final ranking was a tie for 27th. Injuries played a role in that decline, but the main cause was the exhaustion of a life she said she “needed a balance.”
Fortunately, she recovered and made a strong comeback, so much so that she won the 2006 McDonald’s LPGA Championship, her fifth major, in a playoff with Karrie Webb.
Pak is a national heroine in Korea, where there are even children’s books featuring her, and she is proud to be the pioneer of dozens of Korean players who have followed in her footsteps on the LPGA Tour.
“I’ve given them the confidence to come here,” he said. “I think of them as my sisters,” he added.
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