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Golfer Grace Park:
Shifting into Drive

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Golfer Grace Park:
Shifting into Drive

     Grace Park was born March 6, 1979 in Seoul, Korea. Her father is a restaurateur who operates a Seoul steak house. Her mother is a devout amateur golfer. Grace came to the U.S. at the age of 12 to attend Honolulu's exclusive Mid-Pacific Institute. She drove herself as hard in her studies as her mother drove her on the juniors circuit. Her English handicap disappeared quickly. By the time she had moved to Arizona to attend Xavier Prep and Horizon Honors High School, she was pushing up a 97.5 average while managing to become, at the age of 16, the youngest amateur ever to make the cut at the U.S. Women's Open. That record has since been shattered by Michelle Wie, but it will be several years before Park has to worry about having the precocious upstart eclipse the NCAA individual championship she won back in 1999 as an Arizona State honors student (97.9% average).

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     One reason for Park's success is a mother with a single-digit handicap. The other is a solid, wide-stance tee-shot that has been nationally acclaimed since her senior year at Horizon Honors when, at 17, she was asked to test it against Laura Davies and two other LPGA pros at the Standard Register PING in Phoenix. The 5-6 Park hit just shy of 300 yard, a few yards behind the winner hit by Davies. While in her junior year of college, Park's high-recoil drives averaged 263.4 yards at the U.S. Women's Open, surpassing everyone, including Se Ri Pak, by at least nine yards.

     Park's amateur career inspired "Amazing Grace" and other easy plays on her name. In 1998 she logged 14 top-5 finishes in amateur and college tournaments, including first place in the Women's Amateur Championship. That year she also earned a place on the NCAA All-American team and was named Rolex College Player of the Year. In 1999, while in her final year at Arizona State, she won a pair of futures tournaments, tied for eighth in the U.S. Women's Open and finished second at the Safeway LPGA Championship. She was already hailed as likely to equal Se Ri Park's stunning rookie season by the time she earned her LPGA tour card in 2000.

     Little wonder that the golf press has seen her pro career as one long letdown. In her rookie year the lone win was at the Kathy Ireland Classic. Her second year wasn't much better, with only the Office Depot championship and a third-place finish out of six top-10 finishes. 2002 and 2003 proved nearly as disappointing, with one win each.

     “Obviously I haven't played well,” she mused, “so they don't have anything good to write about. So they just make up stories and make excuses. I don't even respond to that, because I know that's not true. I work hard at my game, and I'm going to be as good as I can be.”



     But hope springs eternal, especially when the golfer is photogenic, dresses like a Vogue model and can oblige journalists in fluent, unaccented English. What with her thrilling March major photo-finish, Grace Park has rekindled the hope that, at long last, the bumper crop of Asians in women's golf has produced one serious contender to vie with Annika Sorenstam in the column-inch contest.

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“Obviously I haven't played well, so they don't have anything good to write about. So they just make up stories and make excuses.”


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