As she stood on the 18th green drenched in
champagne, holding a trophy and wearing a mile-wide smile, there was no doubt
about it: So Yeon Ryu is the brightest star on a South Korean golf roster that
has more than its share of them.The 21-year-old Replica
Soccer Jersey won the U.S. Women’s Open
on Monday, first with a birdie on No. 18 that tied her Korean rival, Hee Kyung
Seo, then with a shotmaking clinic over a three-hole playoff to beat Seo by
three shots.
It was the latest – and most emphatic –
statement about the pecking order of women’s golf in South Korea, where the sport’s
stars turn into the country’s icons and Se Ri Pak is already a legend at age
33.”When I was started golf, Se Ri Pak won the U.S. Women’s Open tournament, so
this tournament is really special for me,” Ryu said.Starting on the 16th hole,
Ryu played the three-hole playoff in 2-under par, all but sealing it when she
hit three perfect shots to the green on the par-5 17th and made the putt for a
birdie while Seo drove into a bunker and had to scramble for bogey.For good
measure, Ryu hit her approach on 18 to four feet for another birdie, which
sparked a champagne-spraying celebration on the Italian League Soccer Jerseys 18th green. Pak was among the South Korean contingent that ran out
to douse Ryu in her glow-in-the-dark orange shirt and cap.Great as the moment
was, it was the birdie Ryu made on 18 about an hour earlier that was the
defining moment of the tournament.Trailing by one to an opponent who had closed
out her round before darkness stopped play the previous night, Ryu stood behind
her ball in the fairway, plumbed her 6-iron to her nose, then closed one eye to
take dead aim at the 170-yard shot. She drew the shot uphill, over the lake and
landed the ball six feet from the hole. Moments later, she slammed Juventus Soccer Team Shirts the putt home to pull into a tie. She ended up with two birdies in
the span of an hour on a hole that yielded only 28 over five days.
Certainly nobody can ever say Ryu backed
into this title, won on a 7,000-yard Broadmoor course that got hit by storms
every day, turning it into a test of endurance and patience for some players
and a sporadic series of starts and stops for others.”It’s never over ’til it’s
over, especially in these things,” Cristie Kerr said. “People reallyJuventus
FC Kit want it, and that was a gutsy putt.”Kerr also
had a chance. She came to the Broadmoor on Monday trailing by two with two
holes to play, but couldn’t convert a 12-foot putt from the fringe on 17 to
make things interesting. She finished third at 1-under par.