Se-ri Feels Good in Gender Competence

“She was a great golfer.”

The “Male Golfers’ Wall” was not so high to “Golf Queen” Pak Se-ri (CJ). Her driving range was shorter than that of the male golfers, but golf isn’t a sport which uses only pure strength. She had the guts, which no one else had, and her skills made up for the lack of power.

The first round of the 2003 Oriental Fire Cup SBS Super Tournament Golf Championship was held at the Lakeside CC Western Golf Course (par 72 and 7052yards) in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province on October 23.

Pak Se-ri, competing against male golfers, finished tied for 14th place with a bright outlook and hit three birdies and three bogeys to make even-par, while battling chilly wind and weather.

This result will allow her to enter the top 10 ranking for the tournament and not only to achieve her aim of making the cut (within 60th place after 2nd round).

Shin Yong-jin (LG Fashion) and Yang Yong-eun (Kasco), members of Pak’s group, must have felt the so-called burden “trying won’t do any harm” to make a trifle result. Shin Yong-jin, the current leading prize winner saved his face with even-par and Yang Yong-eun, the former champion of this match, scored a sluggish 7-over par.

In this year which featured an abundance of mixed gender play before Pak Se-ri, four female golfers all failed to make the cut in the men`s tournaments. This was mainly due to the longer drive distance of male golfer. On Thursday’s match, Pak Se-ri’s drive shot was 20 yards shorter than those of Shin Yong-jin and Yang Yong-eun, who are famous for being long driving golfers. However, she kept her pace with delicate iron shots. At the par-5 hole, she tried to make a birdie, the basis of a stable 3-on strategy. When she failed to make a regular-on at par-4-hole, she acted with coolness to save par.

Pak Se-ri, wearing a pink cap and sweater, had a good start by hitting a 7 meter birdie putt at the 2nd hole (par 4) after a 270 yard drive shot. But at the 3rd hole (par 3), she failed to make it on-green because of the adverse wind, and as a result, she hit a bogey. Thus she made another bogey at 4th hole (par4), which is known to be a difficult hole from the practice round. The second shot fell into the bunker so she holed out with three-on and two-putt.

But she put a 5-iron within 1 meter of the pin on the par-3 6th hole and scored a birdie. She received the cheer from the gallery following this birdie. After finishing the first part of the play at even-par, Pak lowered her score by hitting a birdie at par-4, 13th hole to join the under-par group. But it was unfortunate to see her 3-putts-bogey at par 5, 15th hole.

Meanwhile Jung Jun (Callaway), winner of this year Maekyung Open, was tied for first place with a 3-under score.

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com