Tag: golf

Well according to the Korean female LPGA players it is because they practice more:

The world’s best female golfers are gathered at Mission Hills Golf Club this week for the first major of the 2015 LPGA Tour season — the ANA Inspiration.

It’s become a familiar sight while walking along the driving range and seeing almost half of the stalls filled by South Korean golfers.

Many argue it’s just a numbers game and with more players from a certain country, the more you’ll see them on leaderboards.

“It’s not intimidating to me at all,” says American Cristie Kerr who became world No. 10 after her win from the previous week. “It’s pretty simple really. They seem to outnumber a lot of other factions on the tour.”

The 37-year-old veteran is responsible for snapping the streak of six wins by Korean-born golfers after topping Lydia Ko at the Kia Classic.

Granted it’s not Kerr’s job to break down the demographics of the field, but at the moment there are 25 South Korean players who hold an LPGA Tour card compared to 45 Americans.

24 of those 25 are in the field this week while the number of Americans is just north of 35.

After all the theories flying around about Korean golfers, it only made sense to just ask them directly.

“It’s all practice” says world No. 13 Mirim Lee. “Golfers from Korea practice so much and the KLPGA is a really good tour. When I was an amateur I would wake up everyday at 5 a.m. and practice until 8 or 9 p.m.”

“In my opinion Korean players practice a lot more,” says world No. 2 Inbee Park, the highest ranked South Korean player on tour.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Ryu So-yeon (R) poses after winning the team event for pairs representing South Korea at the World Ladies Championship title at Mission Hills Haikou in Hainan, China, on March 15. At left is her teammate Park In-bee. (Yonhap)

The Chosun has a pretty good article today about the image consultants that are hard at work cultivating the teenage golfer’s brand image:

Her Korean-ness also plays a part. Despite her American nationality, when Wie answers questions asked in English in her not-so-fluent Korean, and when she introduces herself by her Korean name Sung-mi instead of Michelle, hearts here melt.

Wie stressed that heritage during last week¿s visit. In contrast to a visit three years ago when she spoke both in English and Korean, this time she several times asked to be called Sung-mi. It seems part of an emerging strategy that saw her offer greetings in Japanese when she went to Japan for the Casio World Open last November and endear herself to locals by saying she likes sushi and Japanese noodles. An advertising professional says a surname like Wie will also go down well in China.

Her girlish image is grist to the mills of a marketing industry infatuated with youth. Meeting the press, Wie recited a string of Korean dramas and movies she claimed to love and confessed to dreams of meeting such idols of Korean teenagers as Chang Dong-kun and Lee Joon-ki. Another image consultant expressed doubt Wie had actually seen the soaps.

But Wie has 20-strong team of handlers. Her agency is William Morris, with 108 years of marketing the famous behind it, two of whose staff came along on the trip. Her image consultant David Lipman also does what he can for Angelina Jolie. They are joined by six lawyers, a nutritionist and a designer or two.

I do have to say that all those consultants are doing one heck of job promoting someone who has won nothing yet. The hype around Michelle Wie reminds me so much of the former hype that followed Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova and look how far that got her.