Top Ten Korean Golf Stories of 2006

8. Jin Joo Hong
Before 2006, Jin Joo Hong's claim to fame was winning the KLPGA's Best Dresser award in 2005. But after an intense off season of training, everything changed for her this year. She began to see the benefits of her hard work in the second half of the year. First she won the SK Enclean Solux Invitational in a rout, dominating a field that not only included all the top KLPGA golfers but also such LPGA stars as Grace Park, Mi Hyun Kim, Joo Mi Kim, Jee Young Lee and Soo-Yun Kang. But this was only a warm-up for her next accomplishment. She was one of several top KLPGA stars invited to participate in the Kolon-Hana Bank Championship, the LPGA's lone event in Korea. She seized control of the event in round two and hung on to easily win, becoming the third KLPGA player in the past four years to capture an LPGA membership by winning this event. She instantly became a big star in Korea, now that her accomplishments had caught up to her appearance and style. She has recently signed a three year sponsorship deal, and tells the press she will work as hard as she can to win the LPGA's Rookie of the Year award in 2007. Hong's 2006 season was a real Cinderella story, except that she didn't have to have a fairy godmother or prince come along to make her dreams come true; she made it all happen herself.

7. Amy Yang
Amy Yang's story at first glance seems exceedingly unlikely. It's only in retrospect that one can see that, if it was not inevitable that she would make a splash of some kind in women's golf as early as she did, that she still is a great talent who was bound to make her presence felt at some point.

Amy Yang is one of a number of Korean teens with golfing talent who decided to leave Korea while still very young to seek training elsewhere. Many of those Korean teens end up coming to America, where it is so much easier than in Korea to get onto a course to play and practice. But a growing number have made Australia their destination. Gloria Park was one of the first; she dominated Australian junior golf in the late 1990s, before becoming a top golfer on the LPGA tour.

Amy Yang and her family moved to Queensland a few years ago. Thanks to good training and her great talent, it wasn't long before she became one of the top amateurs in the country. As a result, she was invited to play in the ANZ Masters, one of the most important professional tournaments each year down under. The field for this year's edition included top players like defending champion and former world number one Karrie Webb, Laura Davies, KLPGA stars Hee Young Park and Bo Bae Song, and Japanese sensation Ai Miyazato. With so many top players in the field, it seemed unlikely that Amy would be a factor. But in the end, the tournament came down to Amy Yang, American amateur Tiffany Joh, and LPGA journeyman Catherine Cartwright. Joh missed a short par putt to get into a playoff, and one hole later, Yang beat Cartwright and claimed the top prize. At the age of 16 years, 10 months, she became the youngest player to ever win a tournament on a major golf tour, male or female (the tournament is a part of the Ladies European Tour). Overnight, she became a major news story all over the world.

Amy showed all year that her win was not a fluke. She was invited to play the Evian Masters and British Women's Open, and did well in both. At the Open, in fact, she was the low amateur. She then surprised everyone by announcing she was turning pro. The LET gave her a special exemption to play on tour even though she was technically younger than their minimum age limit. For her first tournament, she played the Dubai Ladies Masters. She had never played in Dubai before, and was facing stiff competition in the form of Karrie Webb, Annika Sorenstam and several other top LET pros. She finished fourth, losing only to those two superstars and multiple tournament winner Helen Alfredsson. She capped her year with a third place finish in her second pro event, the Mauritius Open. Still only 17 years old, the future seems to hold limitless possibility for this golfer.

6. Kimmie wins twice
Mi Hyun Kim has been one of the top two or three Korean golfers on the LPGA tour ever since she arrived back in 1999. But amazingly, her last victory on tour before this season had come in 2002. She was even in a situation, at the start of this year, where, if she did not win in 2006, she would not be eligible to play at the Tournament of Champions. If that had happened, it would have been the first time in her career she would not have been eligible.

But despite not having won for nearly four years, Kimmie had hardly been having a terrible time of it. In 2004, she achieved the dubious distinction of winning the most money in a single season in LPGA history without a win. She managed fifteen top tens that year. Clearly, she was doing everything but hoist a trophy.

She showed signs right away in 2006 that she might break her winless drought. In her very first event of the year in Mexico, she found herself in the final group on Sunday, playing with none other than Annika Sorenstam and Paula Creamer. Kim was only able to shoot a 72 that day and finished fourth, but it was still a good beginning.

In late April, the LPGA played a huge money event that was new to their schedule: the Ginn Clubs and Resorts Open. With a top prize of $375,000, the event attracted all the top players in the league. Yet heading into the final round, the leader, by an impressive three shots, was none other than Mi Hyun Kim. The question that weighed heavily on her mind was: could she finally get that win? Kim had lost tournaments in the past with larger leads going into the final round. She later admitted that, had she not won this event, she would have felt that she would never win an event on tour again.

Things looked bad at the outset, with top player Lorena Ochoa going out like a house on fire. In less than nine holes, Ochoa caught Kimmie, and Karrie Webb, winner of the first Major of the year, was not far behind. As if that weren't bad enough, Annika Sorenstam was also making a huge run towards the top. It would be hard enough for Kim to win an event under any circumstances, but could she hold off the top three players in the league to do it?

She fought like a tiger the whole back nine. Every time it looked like her lead would slip away, she made another clutch birdie to climb back on top. But the supreme moment came on the seventeenth hole, a par five. On that hole she hit a tremendous drive, 290 yards in length, one of the longest drives of her life. Showing no fear, she hit her second shot over a treacherous bunker onto the green. She two putted for birdie, and went on to at last break her victory drought! In fact, the most challenging aspect of the entire week for her might have been trying to lift the unwieldy trophy she won!

Kimmie continued to have a great season after that. She contended all weekend for the LPGA Championship, finishing third; then in July, she won an impressive playoff against Natalie Gulbis for her second win of the year. That victory came thanks to a four shot comeback by Peanut on the back nine, and a tenacious three hole playoff against not just Gulbis, but against a huge crowd, almost all of whom were rooting for the popular American. Kimmie put the icing on her season by captaining the Korean team to victory at the Kyoraku Cup in December.

Oh yeah, and she played the Tournament of Champions as well, although she got sick and had to drop out after the first round. Oh well, at least she qualifies for the field until 2009!