Would Park Se-ri Defeat Male Golfers As Well in Her First Gender Competition Next Month?

Pak Se-ri(26•CJ) finally competes for the trophy against male golfers.

US LPGA Tour top star Park will play against male golfers at the 2003 SBS Pro-Golf Championship (Total award 300million won) opening on the coming Oct 22 at Lakeside CC West Course (par 72). Park Se-ri announced on Sep 22 through her management Sema Co. (CEO Park Jun-chul) that, “Male players are superior in some points such as long shot distance. Still, I want to enter the final round and if possible I want to win the game. I think I can learn a lot of things from this game and I will go for it.”

Other than Korean-American golfer Michelle Wie (13), Park is the first Korean female golfer to compete with male golfers at a regular tournament.

The organizer of the game, SBS, changed the game format, which it has maintained for 11 years until last year, to hold a `gender competition` of Park Se-ri. Actually, the game was like a year`s end All-star Tournament, where only top ranking male and female players could take part, but from this year, it has separated the male and female games, with 110 players playing in the men`s tournament.

Also, in the past, players could join the game until the 4 round without cut-offs once they take part in the game. However, from this year, final 60 players will be chosen for the final round.

Park, who started training on men`s tee recently for the tournament, said, “Major differences are in choosing golf clubs. On men`s tee, I have to use number 4 and 5 irons, which have lower accuracy, so I feel a lot of burden.”

Whether Park will be able to join the final round will be determined by the course setting. Average shot number of Park Se-ri who grabbed 3 victories in this season is 70.10타(ranking 3)and her green accuracy rate is 72.1%(ranking 5). She achieved those records on golf courses that are average of 6500 yards. Lakeside CC West Course is short for male players, so for this game it will be stretched by around 100 yard, to be around 7080∼7100 yards.

Meanwhile, some difficulties are forcasted as Park`s main sponsor CJ Co. opposes her joining the game. CJ has signed sponsorship contract with Park with 15billion won and it said, “We can not let her become a scapegoat of gender competition which aims at sheer entertainment.”

Young-Sik Ahn ysahn@donga.com