Dream of Three Female Golfers

Korean girls, strong foreign players at the US LPGA Tour, ended the first round of 2002 Jamie Farr Kroger Classic ($ 100 million awards) with excellent performances.

The first round on the 12th was held at the Silvania Highland Meadow GC (par 71 and 6365 yards) in Ohio. All three Korean girls ranked 4th together among 144 participants. Park Hee-Chung (22, CJ39 Shopping), whose nickname is Koala, Han Hee-Won (24, Fila Korea) and Jeong Jang (22, Genus) all marked 2 under pars and 69 hittings.

Just 2 behind the Rachel Teske (Australia), who is leading the competition.

Park Sa-Ri (25), who is aiming at the two consecutive and 4 cumulative championship, got off to a bad start with 1 over par and 72 shots.

Park Hee-Chung did not show satisfying performance other than the third at the season-opening Dake Fuji Classic. Park, however, did good driver shots, all of which landed 100% on the fairway, recording 3 buddies and 1 boggy.

By the 17th hole, Park recorded only three buddies without any boggy. At the 18th hole, where she had to cut down hittings, she made a mistake in boggy and lost the chance to lead the competition with Teske.

Han Hee-Won, last year`s best rookie, scored 4 buddies and 2 boggies. In the meanwhile, Jeong, who is poor at driver shots and iron shots, made up her weakness with her sophisticated putting (25 in total) and recorded no boggy and only 2 buddies.

Contrary to expectations, Park Se-Ri recorded over par for the first time in five years at the Highland Meadows GC. So her ranking stopped at 43 with Karry Web (Australia) Lorry Kane (Canada) and Lee Chong-Yon (Hankook tire). Considering the field conditions, Park could possibly catch up and get ahead in the remaining three days.

In the meantime, Kim Mi-Hyun (25 KTF) recorded 3 buddies and 2 boggies, ending the first round ranked 14th.

Teske topped the first round with Dorothy Delasin (USA) and Jeanne-Marie Busuttil right behind. Teske, this year, beat Anika Sorenstom (Sweden), who is famous for turning around in the overtime periods, and grabbed a championship in March.

Young-Sik Ahn ysahn@donga.com