South Korea Dominates Rolex Top-20 (Video)

By Anthea Solomon | Feb 22, 2015

We live in exciting times for women’s golf with all golf nations seeking to duplicate the South Korean golf success. Although players representing 8 different nationalities populate the top 20 in the World Golf Rolex Rankings, 8 of the top twenty — 40% — are from South Korea. South Korean Inbee Park controlled the top of the Rolex Rankings for 59 weeks during 2013-2014 and remains an active challenger for the top slot. The Tour’s 2015 season has begun with two South Korean champions. Na Yeon Choi emerged victorious at the Coates Golf Championship and rookie Sei Young Kim took the win at the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Championship. Lydia Ko, the hottest golfer in the world is Korean-born as are Minjee Lee and Su Oh, two rising young stars in the pro golf world. What is South Korea doing right in the preparation of its junior golfers for outstanding professional careers?

My theory is that this success is due to a combination of cultural themes which don’t exclude Western culture but have been supported by some brilliant home grown role models. It is these role models — embodied in Se Ri Pak, Mi Hyun Kim, and Grace Park — that have magnified the success of the Koreans and put them in the spotlight.

The sheer dominance of the LPGA Tour by Korean born golfers has raised more than the odd eyebrow over the years. The question of how this relatively small nation (population approximately 51 million) has produced such a high number of quality women golfers has often been a hot topic around the 19^th hole.

In 2010 Kim Kibum, Lim Seungyup and Kim Minsuk published “A Socio-Cultural Analysis of the Influx and Success of Korean Golfers on the LPGA Tour” in the Journal of Sport and Leisure Studies under the title.

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This interesting study found that Korean women golfers said that they were often the first to arrive at driving ranges and the last to leave. The players were also quoted as saying that they thought this idea of practice came from Korea’s unique strong mentality and self-sacrificing assistance from their parents, which they saw as a cultural attribute.

Having been extremely impressed by recent performances on the LPGA I sat down with some Korean amateur golf friends of mine for an in-depth chat about their thoughts on Korean golf and what differences they saw between the cultures that could explain the recent dominance on the professional tour.

My friends explained that South Korean society is very competitive. Because there are fewer opportunities for average children to advance to tertiary education, parents and their children do whatever they can to outperform others.

I’m told by my friends that parents buy into this process and try to help their kids in any way possible to succeed in the sport. This parental commitment, combined with a dedication from both the children and parents, fits neatly into culture that emphasizes and values reputation and which, in turn, motivates both the parents and children as they want to make a name for themselves and be seen as successful.

Patience is a key to success in golf, which is as much a mental game as it is an exercise in technical athletic skill. From what I ‘ve seen and experienced Koreans seem to be very patient, potentially more patient than golfers from other countries. I feel that this patience comes from their strong work ethic and that they draw their confidence by virtue of the tremendous amount of practice they undertake.

Besides these personal obligations that drive players and their families to “commit” to the game of golf, another advantage Korean golfers (and other pro athletes as well) enjoy is a more open sponsorship program. In contrast to other countries, lowly ranked pros are assisted with their bills for travel and training. They have very strong families, and supporting their golf family is very important to them.

The Korean dream of golfing success is a complex and interesting topic and one which we will watch with interest as it plays out in the years to come. With amazing role models such as Se Ri Pak, Grace Park, Inbee Park, So Yeon Ryu, Hyo-Joo Kim, I am sure the South Korean dominance of women’s professional golf will not be short lived.