JIN JOO HONG

The Facts

Capsule Bio

Jin Joo Hong joined the KLPGA in 2003. She was a decent player there, but not one of the very best. Perhaps her biggest claim to fame before the 2006 season was winning the Best Dressed Award at the 2005 KLPGA Annual Award Show.

But during the off season that year, Hong decided she wanted to see if she could elevate the level of her game. She worked intensively to improve during that Winter. The results were not immediately apparent, but by the middle of the 2006 KLPGA season, she started to appear on leaderboards with more regularity.

Her breakthrough came at the SK Enclean Solux Invitational in mid-September. This event had a stellar field that include LPGA powerhouses like Mi Hyun Kim and Grace Park, recent LPGA winners like Joo Mi Kim and Soo-Yun Kang, and top LPGA rookies Kyeong Bae and Jee Young Lee. Despite this deep field, Jin Joo absolutely steamrollered the competition. She got out to a big lead early and kept increasing it through the week. She ended up winning by seven shots.

As impressive as that was, Hong was not done yet. A month and a half later, she did the same thing to a field of LPGA players that she had done at the SK. She seized control of the Kolon-Hana Bank Championship, the lone LPGA tour event in Korea, and cruised to a 3 shot lead over stars like Jeong Jang, Se Ri Pak, Paula Creamer and Ji Yai Shin. Like Shi Hyun Ahn and Jee Young Lee before her, this win gave Hong a two year membership on the LPGA tour. A few weeks later, she nearly notched a top ten at the Tournament of Champions, her first event played in the States.

Still, she wasn't sure she wanted to play on the LPGA. She had earlier planned to play on the JLPGA in 2007, so she could live with her mother in Japan. But her mom convinced her that the LPGA was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Jin Joo did not have a very strong 2007 rookie season on the LPGA, alas, although she still managed a top ten at the end of the year at the Tournament of Champions, and easily made enough money to maintain her exempt status for 2008.

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