Lee Bo-mi receives five awards at JLPGA tour ceremony

Lee Bo-mi who has topped this year's JLPGA Tour is showered with honors. She has got five awards, the most award record in the JLPGA Tour history, at the JLPGA Tour award ceremony held in Tokyo on Tuesday.

"I'm dazed to have been given awards that I could not have expected," Lee said at a phone interview Wednesday. "I really appreciate it and promise to do better." She received prize money worth 1.8 billion won (1.51 million dollars). Having grabbed the best player award, top prize award, least number of hits awards for the second straight year, the first ever record made in the JLPGA Tour history, she also received a best shot award given by the press and the Beauty of the Year award by Shiseido.

Prize money matches those of other major competitions. As a best player, she got 5 million yen (42,515 dollars) and a Mercedes Benz E200 Avant Guard Sports worth around 70 million won (58.528 dollars). The Beauty of the Year prize money is 3 million yen (25,509 dollars) plus a restaurant complimentary ticket worth 1 million yen (8,503 dollars).

Yet to get a driver's license, Lee also received huge car awards. She has won four cars as supplementary award. When she topped the CAT Ladies, a compact excavator was awarded. "I want to learn driving but am having time constraints," she said.

"After grabbing seven wins and recording an all-time high award money last year, I suffered great stress that I had to do better," she said. "I was agonized for three months in the middle of the season and was also physically stressed out. But I regained calmness thanks to fans' support."

"I want to achieve season average hits in the 60s and also a victory in a major competition," she spoke of next year's goal. Lee's average hits this year is 70.092.

After returning to Korea on Thursday, Lee will go to Palm Springs in California on January 10 where she will train for more than a month. "I will focus on upping shot performance," she said. "Short games require heavy training that I have to change the wedge two times a year, but this time I will focus on bunker shots."

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com