Originally Posted by
BCR
Question Jeff, we always had a local LPGA tourney. It was the Phar Mor. Then owner got nabbed for embezzling hundreds of millions and the Pittsburgh-based grocery store chain Giant Eagle took it over. My buddy was an exec then and still is with them.
He’d grab me and we’d play with the lady pros for a few years back late 90s. Was really neat experience. They were so damn good from 175 to the cup.
Played with Michelle McGann one year. Pro I didn’t know another year.
That was Se Ri Pak’s rookie year. Was on a heater coming in and she won. That was pre-Yao Ming, and my first exposure to the crazy Asian national pride thing when they hit it big on a global stage.
There was I’d estimate upwards of 3k South Koreans there following her like deadheads stop to stop. They were there even earlier in the week. Funniest part is they all had these big signs with her picture on one side, and Chan Ho Park on the other side. It felt like you were attending an event in Seoul.
Was Pak the first or were there other South Koreans before her? I was just curious who started the craze and made every South Korean girl dream of being the next big golf star?
By the time I started paying attention again it felt like the LPGA was less popular and it was all Asians up top and Americans had tuned out. Before that it was Lopez, Inkster, Daniels, and then Annika.
BCR, nice to see you in there thread and to be totally transparent, you know more about the history of woman’s golf than I do. I have bet the last 4 tournaments. For me the PGA tour has never been as deep as it is now. Dustin Johnson played above the rim for a while, but because of the Tiger revolution there are so many guys that can win every week.
The LPGA is more front loaded with talent. At the moment I’m sort of hoping J Ko can almost be like the Serena Williams for Woman’s Golf, although that isn’t possible in a sport with as many variables as Golf, you know what I mean. I am hoping if that’s the case, to squeeze every penny out of her before the odds get absurd. I still have a lot of work to be done to see if the LPGA is something I can profit at long term. My sample size is way too small.
Pak was for sure the pioneer. I know that the course set-ups on the Korean tour are typically more difficult than the set-ups on the LPGA. This quick article really breaks things down better than I ever could.
https://www.womensgolf.com/south-korea
The “rookies” who come from South Korea are not real rookies. They have the good fortune of having already played professionally and in tougher scoring conditions. Their success has now fully become part of the culture and the top performers are very likely coming to the LPGA in short measure.
I can speculate why the Tiger Revolution didn’t translate nearly as much to Women’s Golf as for American Players. Golf is so time consuming and expensive that you really need to be all in on it. Maybe it’s something about society here today that just doesn’t attract the same amount of females to Golf. The Korean dominance may also be a deterrence.
I have watched a lot of LPGA in the last few months and I will tell you that they really do try to promote the Americans. Nelly and Jessica Korda for sure make sense, they are good (especially Nelly) and attractive. Even on the tour championship when I had J Ko, who ended up winning by 5 strokes, she didn’t get much coverage until she basically had a share of the lead.
Thanks for the story. It’s always good to know more and more. I would say the betting/dfs aspect of Woman’s golf is a huge factor in their success and I expect to see more and more wagering on it in the future.