interview | women’s golf
Shin on the success of Korean golfers: “We’re well built and small and we have good physical control”
East and
West
Lewine Mair talks to two-time Women's British Open champion Jiyai Shin about the different approaches players from Asia and their counterparts in Europe and the US take to the game.
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etiquette towards sponsors and, as for the LPGA version, that was all to do with understanding the media and the importance of fulfilling media commitments.” When Shin first arrived on American shores for the start of the 2008 season she was, for want of a better word, “gobsmacked” at what she was seeing. Her father kept telling her to practise but, for the first fortnight at least, she had her eye on a whole lot more than merely the golf ball. “I couldn’t begin to focus,” she laughs. The first thing to capture her attention was the way in which Westerners mostly came to the tour on their own, with parents looking in a regular basis but not being omnipresent. In contrast, she said, Koreans tend to appear with parents and siblings in tow – and that is how it stays. “You join the tour and your home life comes with you,” continues Shin. “Members of your family will be at your side and you, the player, are thinking that you have to play well because of the sacrifices they are
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esterners are at once envious and uneasy at the extent to which the Korean women work at their golf. Koreans, in turn, do not appear to have too many hard and fast views on their Western counterparts, though Jiyai Shin, who turned 25 last month, has made a few telling observations. Besides having played competitively all over the world, this particular Korean is in the unique position of having attended three ‘rookie orientation’ courses – on the Korean, the Japanese and the LPGA Tours. Some six or seven years on and this twotime Ricoh Women’s British Open champion is still baffled at the extent to which each of those courses differed from the others. “The KLPGA,” she begins, “stressed the importance of the Rules of Golf and of making friendships with senior players and not doing anything to upset them. “The JLPGA course was mostly about
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Shin, who says she gets asked all the time about Korean dominance, has another theory she likes to proffer in this respect. She believes that Koreans have far more competitive play under their belts by the time they turn professional.
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Shin, seen here during last year’s Women’s British Open which she won, believes that no Korean golfer is going to be able to enjoy the longevity of Laura Davies (opposite). “They’re going to burn out too fast,” she says 48
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making. In many cases, it motivates us. It also goes a long way towards explaining why Koreans tend to do well.” Shin, who says she gets asked all the time about Korean dominance, has another theory she likes to proffer in this respect. She believes that Koreans have far more competitive play under their belts by the time they turn professional. “Plenty of golfers in other countries start young but, in Korea, we can be playing tournaments on a regular basis from as early as seven,” she says. Shin smiles when she starts talking about the practicing habits of her compatriots as against those of her Western sisters. She begins by making mention of “the golf daddies”, as she and her sister Koreans refer to those Korean fathers who watch their daughters’ every shot. It is, she agrees, an approach which is at the opposite end of the spectrum to, say, that of Laura Davies, the out-and-out star of British golf for over two decades.
Shin has talked before of how things would have been very different for Davies had she been born into a Korean family. And of Koreans being stunned by the sight of the Englishwoman hitting just a handful of practice shots before going on her way to the first tee. “When I first saw her,” recalls Shin, “I said to myself, ‘She must be very confident that she doesn’t feel she has to practice’. Then, after a bit, I start thinking to myself that she must actually be very smart. “No Korean is going to be enjoying playing for as long as Laura. [Davies is in her 50th year and taking aim at a 13th successive Solheim Cup]. They’re all going to burn out too fast.” Shin digresses and recalls the 2009 US Women's Open when she and Davies played together over the first two days. “We came to this par-4 where I hit a drive and a 3-wood and was still 20 yards short of the green. Laura, meanwhile, hit a drive and a four-iron and had a 12-footer for a birdie. "As we walked off the green, Laura was shaking her head sadly and saying, ‘I can’t believe I needed a four-iron to reach the green.’ When I told her that I had needed all three of a drive, a three-wood and a wedge she looked a bit taken aback.” Shin points to how the unofficial timetable on an LPGA practice ground tells its own story. HKGOLFER.COM
“When I arrive at about six-thirty or seven o’clock, there will be a handful of players already there, all of them Korean. Americans arrive from eight o’clock onwards and the other nationalities follow on from there." She says that while many people assume that Japanese golfers are the same as Koreans in a practicing context, in fact, the two have relatively little in common. At her first Japanese tournament, Shin picked up a bucket of 40 balls and devoted the first 30 to her chipping when her caddie intervened. “Aren’t you going to practice your long game?” he queried. “What do you mean,” Shin returned. “Well,” he explained, “you only have 10 balls left and it’s against the rules to hit more than 40.” The above, hazards the player, accounts for why the Japanese spend a higher percentage of their time in the gym. On a rather different topic, Shin does not harbour any resentment towards Caroline Bivens, the former CEO of the LPGA who demanded that Koreans should learn English if they wanted to stay on the tour. Though there were Westerners who were concerned that their CEO would make so HKGOLFER.COM
discriminatory a remark, they did not disagree with the message. In particular, they concurred with Bivens’ comments about the Koreans not always pulling their weight in terms of giving pro-am partners a good day: they were using the occasions more as practice rounds for themselves. “English is good for us,” maintains Shin. “When you can speak it, you can make more jokes with pro-am partners and have more fun. Se Ri Pak helped us with this, telling us everything she learned in her early years on tour.” Shin also helped herself by spending a winter in Australia polishing her chips and her English chat at the same time. It was the mother of Korean-born, New Zealand amateur sensation Lydia Ko who, during the course of last year’s Ricoh Women’s British Open, advanced the idea that Koreans were particularly well-built for golf. She said as much during the storms which assailed the players in a week in which her daughter won the Silver Medal and Shin captured the championship itself. Shin was not about to disagree: “We are wellbuilt and small and we have good physical control,” she nodded. HK Golfer・MAY 2013
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“When I arrive at about six-thirty or seven o’clock, there will be a handful of players already there, all of them Korean. Americans arrive from eight o’clock onwards and the other nationalities follow on from there."
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Like most Koreans, Shin was inspired by the achievements of Se Ri Pak, who took the LPGA by storm in the early 2000s. “She helped us by telling everything she learned about in her early years,” explained Shin 50
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But this pluckiest of competitors does not regard the observation as wholly flattering. Indeed, she wryly admits to envying those of her American and European colleagues who were tall, thin, “and great golfers as well.” She makes cheerful reference to a formal function the previous evening for which she had excitedly donned the latest in high-heeled boots. All went well until she bumped into the Michelle Wies and Paula Creamers of this world who, with their five or six inch heels, were still towering over her. Shin says she has felt no remnants of the resentment which was visited on those of her Korean predecessors who commandeered what the Americans saw as too large a chunk of their loot. Instead, she is only conscious of the extent to which all nationalities are coming together as they share the same goals and, inevitably, the same concerns. In the case of the former, Shin says that she, personally, has borrowed from the Westerners
and Japanese alike. She practices less and she spends more of her time on physical conditioning with a view to staying on the upper echelons of the game’s leaderboards for longer. Moving on to the concerns, she says that one mutual problem is what happens to a professional golfer when her playing days are done. Last year, when she had a hand injury and was out of the game for much of the season, Shin never stopped worrying about what she might do instead. “I was tired of golf – physically and mentally tired,” she says. “I talked a lot about retirement but then I saw this Japanese psychologist who made me see sense. She said I should play golf while I was lucky enough to be playing well – and put any thoughts of what to do in the future on hold." Today, Shin is enjoying the LPGA Tour as much as she ever did whilst simultaneously completing the degree course she started in 2008. She took a two-year break in 2010 but will be graduating next summer. “I realise now,” she says, “that I have this very special life in golf. Another five years or so will bring me up to 20 years of playing – amateur and professionally – on a more-or-less everyday basis and that’s when I will start thinking of the future. All I can say for now is that I am hoping to have an equally special life after golf.” HKGOLFER.COM