Pak returns after physical exhaustion
Originally Published: March 22, 2005
By Hunki Yun | Golf World
Se Ri Pak had been exhausted before, but never like this. She didn't feel this way as a teenager during the cold dawns of winter, running backward up and down the 15 flights of exposed stairs at the apartment building where she grew up in Daejeon, South Korea, the lactic acid in her leg muscles making every step painful and the icy air burning her lungs.
Pak is hoping that rest and relaxation were the prescription for a return to form this season.
Nor was it how she felt in 1998, during what was supposed to be a triumphant homecoming after her breakout rookie season. Pak, then 20, fell sick at the end of a taxing, overscheduled week filled with news conferences, sponsor appearances, presidential ceremonies, formal dinners and a parade, not to mention a golf tournament she was expected to win easily. She had to be hospitalized for flu and exhaustion.
Those were physical discomforts, overcome with rest, focus and determination. But Pak's condition as she walked off the 18th green at the Club at Nine Bridges on Jeju Island, South Korea, last fall was rooted more deeply.
A volcanic island off the southwest coast of the Korean peninsula, Jeju is a favorite vacation spot for Koreans, but there was little relaxation for Pak during her visit to play in the CJ Nine Bridges Classic. Although she tied for 11th, the result involved too much work, as with many of her tournaments for the year. It was certainly a lot harder than during her two previous years in the event, a win and a tie for second. What had been so easy since she shot 82 in her first competitive round at age 14, not long after taking up the game, finally had worn her out.
"I had a lot of stress, and for the first time I felt mentally tired about the game," she said. "It just wasn't fun for me."
Pak's letdown came after years of sustained success tinged with the futility of chasing someone – Annika Sorenstam – who stayed a step ahead. After winning eight times – including two majors, in 1998 and 1999 – Pak endured a winless season in 2000. Then, when she reemerged as a dominant player in 2001, she discovered Sorenstam also had improved. Pak won five times in 2001, including a major, but Sorenstam had eight wins and a major. Pak won five times with a major in 2002, but Sorenstam bettered that with 11 wins and a major. Pak slipped to three victories in 2003, without a major, while Sorenstam won six times with two majors.
Last year, Pak won only once and finished 11th on the money list while struggling to find fairways. Sorenstam won eight times, including a major for the fourth straight year. The gulf between No. 1 and everyone else – including Pak and Karrie Webb, the main contenders for the top spot – seemed wider than ever.
"Annika has put pressure on a lot of players," said LPGA Hall of Famer and ABC commentator Judy Rankin. "Se Ri really wanted to be No. 1, and when you have these expectations, there's also a big downside."
At the end of a year that began with such high hopes, Pak was not even the best Korean. Grace Park won her first major and was second on the money list. Mi-Hyun Kim (seventh) and Hee-Won Han (eighth) also had better seasons. Pak missed consecutive cuts for the first time and had just five top-10s after 20 such finishes in 2003.
"For the first time in my career, I lost my confidence," said Pak. "It was the first time I felt uncomfortable on the golf course, and I was very upset about it. I would be standing over the ball with a driver, ready to swing, and I didn't know where my ball was going to go."
An outward sign of Pak's confusion came during her pretournament news conference at the Weetabix Women's British Open. Even before the first questions, she rambled on about the poor state of her game, and her English, now usually almost fluent, began to revert to the nearly unintelligible syntax she had displayed at the beginning of her career.
"I think time to work on my game, I guess," she said at one point during her discordant discourse. "Hard time, time to get much more power, so much focus and so much having work on my game so that makes it much more harder."
It was only the end of July, but it was apparent the season already had been very long for Pak. By fall, a burnt-out and bewildered Pak, who had cut her schedule – CJ was her 19th event of the year – considered her options. The comfort of family and friends in Daejeon was an hour-long flight away. Her house in Orlando and more stress at the season-ending ADT Championship were halfway around the world. Pak shut down her season early and, for the second time in her career, unexpectedly extended a trip to Korea. Strangely, it occurred on Halloween both times, six years apart, proving the golf gods have a twisted sense of humor.
In Daejeon, a technology center of more than 1.4 million people that is known less for hosting the 1993 World Expo than for being Pak's hometown, she did as much as possible to forget about golf. Pak spent time with friends eating out, shopping and catching up on movies – a number of Korean titles and some Hollywood fare, including "Shark Tale." She went snowboarding at a nearby ski resort, worked out and hit some balls when the weather allowed, just to remain loose and retain some feel, not to try to fix her swing. Mostly, she figured things out.
Pak waited until she returned to Florida after the new year to rebuild her game, although she didn't seem to be toiling much as she sat in a golf cart near the range at MetroWest Golf Club in southwest Orlando, during a break from a daylong session. The rest in Korea seemed to have helped. Pak appeared relaxed, comfortable and motivated as she discussed the frustrating events of 2004 and their aftermath with a sense of detachment that time and personal growth bring.
"I think I learned a lot last year," said Pak, who leaned forward before continuing. "My first seven years on tour were pretty stable. But last year was totally different. I realized how important it is to take care of myself more than anything. My stay in Korea was the most time I'd ever spent for myself."
One of the biggest breakthroughs during her offseason of personal development was a shift in her relationship with her father. An important tenet of Korean society is an unwavering fealty to one's elders, especially parents. The dynamic is that of unequals: The elder speaks; the child listens. The "child" could be an adult herself, but the principle is the same.
Yet even in this context, Joon Chul Pak is not your average Korean parent, and Se Ri never thought about objecting to her dad's extreme training techniques, which included having her spend the night in a cemetery. "My father is very tough," Pak said. "He told me what to do and how to do it. But I knew it was because he was trying to make me stronger."
He remains involved with Se Ri's game and career, visiting the United States several times a year and walking every hole whenever she plays in Korea. Pak knows she'll never change her father; she just wants to change their relationship, to make it less autocratic, more give-and-take. "I realized if I talk to my father [instead of just listening all the time], I feel better," Pak said. "I tell him what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. Some parts he understands, other parts he doesn't. But our relationship changed, and now I feel more free."
Like many of the Koreans on tour, Pak lives a rather solitary existence on the road. Rarely seen in restaurants with other players, she uses the range to work, not socialize. Asked at a tournament last summer to describe her life, Pak said, "Probably 300 days is going to be work out, get changed, golf course, practice, come back to hotel. It's the same old thing."
Despite her spontaneous smiles, Pak always has approached golf with a surfeit of intensity. "I need to be a little more relaxed, not be too tough on myself," she said.
In 1998, Pak emerged relatively unscathed after collapsing under the weight of the tremendous responsibility that had been placed on the former high-school track star. The real culprits were her then-sponsor, Samsung, which had put together the overbooked week, and South Korea, a country that sometimes exists solely to save face and lost a lot of it that week. "Se Ri Has Fallen," blared a newspaper headline, and TV cameras showed an unconscious Pak with a tear rolling down her cheek.
If anything, life became easier for Pak upon her return to the LPGA Tour. Amid less clamor, she was able to continue to grind and win events. But in 2004, when her driving accuracy fell to 60 percent, from 75 percent in 2002, a steadfast work ethic wasn't enough. Instead of trying to shrug off the wayward drives and finding ways to get the ball in the hole, Pak allowed her funk to fester.
"I remember her playing from the rough a lot," Rankin said. "I really couldn't see anything wrong with her swing, but the lack of confidence was visible. When you're going badly, something invariably goes wrong every day and it's, 'Here we go again.' You were able to see that in her face."
Pak's coach, Tom Creavy, said, "Her arms and the club were out of sync with her body turn. She's always had a tendency to be long at the top, so her clubhead and arms were traveling too slowly."
In Pak's sixth event, her swing clicked long enough to produce a closing, 6-under 65 that allowed her to win the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill, qualifying her for entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame. "It's my proudest achievement because it was my biggest goal before I came to the United States," Pak said. "Anyone can win a tournament, even a major. But making the Hall of Fame is not easy. In two years, my name will be in the history books forever."
That was when the slide really began. Webb said she experienced a letdown, a sense of "What do I do now?" after qualifying for the Hall of Fame. For Pak, the opposite happened. "I put more pressure on myself," said Pak, who will have just turned 30 when she is eligible for entry at the end of 2007, making her the second-youngest inductee, after Mickey Wright. "I should have been more relaxed, but I went the other way. I was now a Hall of Famer, so I expected more from myself, more wins, more perfect shots."
After the lowest point of her career, Pak stayed in Korea for more than two months before returning to Orlando in mid-January. Pak hopes she can return just as successfully when her 2005 season starts in March at the MasterCard Classic in Mexico City as she did after her 1998 collapse in Korea.
Some things have changed. Now managed by International Management Group, Pak has a $2.5 million annual endorsement contract with a less-controlling sponsor, CJ, a Korean company that got its start in food services. She also has a house in Orlando, where she enjoys living, and a share of the spotlight with other Koreans on tour.
Although they reacted in different ways, both Pak and Webb essentially have imploded from the pursuit of Sorenstam, the way a teenager would become frazzled from playing a video game against an infallible computer. Pak didn't crack the top 15 in the year's three remaining majors and had only one more top-10 finish. That was at the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, an event she had won four times in six years.
"We were just trying to remain positive toward the second half," said Creavy, who has worked with Pak since 2000, after she parted ways first with David Leadbetter, then with Butch Harmon. "But, basically, we were waiting for the year to end so we could clear the slate and start over."
The new beginning also will include a new caddie. Colin Cann, who was with Pak for four years, quit in December to work for Paula Creamer, a gifted but relatively untested newcomer. Pak said she "was a little surprised" Cann left her. Cann declined comment, but tour cognoscenti couldn't help wondering whether the veteran caddie's decision to cast his lot with a rookie instead of sticking with a Hall of Famer said something about his belief about whether Pak can return to peak form.
Pak's new looper is Eric Tuscan, a former mini-tour player who has worked for Emilee Klein and Ty Tryon. Creavy feels Tuscan will help balance some of Pak's on-course tendencies. "Se Ri is very structured and very left-brained, and so is Colin," Creavy said. "Eric is more right-brained, so they'll be a good combination. He's more fun, more creative. He'll be trying to make sure she's aiming at the right portion of the green instead of getting so analytical with her swing."
After getting back from Korea, Pak began working in earnest with Creavy. "It was literally back to the basics: grip, posture, weight transfer, turn," he said. "She's so talented that if she sets up to the ball properly, chances are she's going to make a pretty good swing."
Preparing in Orlando last month, Pak already was more confident. "Right now, I don't feel like I did last year at all," she said. "My swing, my mental state, just my whole self – everything is different."
Not surprisingly, Pak has lofty goals for 2005. "I want to be No. 1 in pretty much everything," she said. "Wins, money rankings, Vare Trophy. And I want to win the career Grand Slam."
That last goal would be met with a victory at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, where her best finish is a tie for ninth in 2002.
Creavy and Pak aren't alone in thinking optimistically. "It wasn't a fluke that she played so well for so long," said Rankin. "She has enormous talent. She's like a .300 hitter in baseball going through a slump and just needs a bloop single to regain that confidence."
Great hitters snap slumps with extra work in the batting cage. Pak does likewise. The break is over, and although the January morning is unseasonably cold, Pak returns to practicing on the corner of the range at MetroWest, a public facility. She isn't far from the paying customers, but nobody bothers her, perhaps because she is well disguised in rain pants that cover her familiar, solidly built legs. Even if they did approach her, they would be reluctant to disturb the focus she brings to her practice, all the more intense for the purpose of erasing the sour memories of 2004.
"That's one of the reasons she's so good," Creavy said. "If she wasn't so hard on herself, she wouldn't settle for less than winning. But sometimes you can push yourself too hard. I'd like to see her get back to playing like you do when you first start playing golf – just see the target and just want to hit it there."
With Pak, it might be for the first time.
