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Inbee Park: Lessons from the Links

By Elizabeth Bethel

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Watching Inbee Park play a round of golf involves lessons in self-management and impulse control as well as lessons in ball striking and putting.  But for Park, who has found the key to fusing technical skill and mental balance, the lessons she’s extracted from the game of golf go well beyond the sphere of athletic performance.

How has she managed this enviable accomplishment that many of us — still flinging our clubs and cursing our errant balls — never achieve?  Like Jordan Spieth, Inbee Park has extracted some crucial lessons from her losses.

READ MORE: Spieth extracted lessons from his failure at St Andrews last month

While most Tour players are getting ready to tee it up in Portland at the Cambia Portland Classic, Inbee Park is in South Korea this week, spending some time basking in the afterglow of her RICOH Women’s British Open victory and her newly minted Career Grand Slam.

The 7th LPGA player to achieve this career pinnacle received a hero’s welcome at Inchon International Airport last week, complete with lights, cameras, reporters, and flowers.

Asked to comment on her Turnberry victory and her Grand Slam, as she cleared customs at the airport a flower-bedecked Inbee Park told reporters that initially she didn’t fully realize the scope of her accomplishment.

"“Then on my way here, I began thinking about all the people who would be out here to greet me, and that’s when the victory dawned on me. I have so many people to thank.”"

This win was a lesson in peserverence. Inbee Park had competed in five Women’s British Opens before she claimed her 2015 victory.  She finished inside the top-10 in four of them, but her painful losses at the 2013 and 2014 Championships stand out in Park’s memory for the lessons she learned.

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In 2013 Inbee Park had won the season’s first three majors — the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the US Women’s Open and the LPGA Championship. Only the Women’s British Open stood between her and the singular distinction of becoming the first LPGA player to win four consecutive majors in one season.  Instead of victory, however, she finished the British Open in a tie for 42nd and that distinction slipped through her fingers.

In 2014 Park started the final round with a one-stroke lead but finished in fourth place — two strokes behind Mo Martin, a single shot behind Suzann Pettersen and Shanshan Feng — after a final round that included six bogeys and a double bogey that led to a heartbreaking 77.  It was an experience she later characterized as  “probably the most disappointing tournament” of her career.

Perhaps more than any other experiences in her pro golf career, those two losses prepared Inbee Park for the four rounds she delivered at Turnberry.

"“In 2013, I learned that I must stay patient and never give up until the end. Last year, I learned that I must not be too greedy.”"

Just to refresh your memory, this year Inbee Park came to the first tee at Turnberry on Sunday trailing Jin Young Ko by three shots but ready to put those two lessons to work.  Staying patient, she went 7 under par in a 10-hole stretch around the turn and leapfrogged her young mentee down the stretch, delivering a stunning round that included 7 birdies and an eagle, to capture the Women’s British Open trophy that had eluded her for five years.

READ MORE: Jin Young Ko became a Twitterverse sensation.

Like many things in golf, those lessons in patience, perseverance and generosity Park learned on the links can work as well for life as they do for athletic competition.  They clearly are lessons Inbee Park has learned thoroughly and integrated seamlessly into her golf game.  I can only imagine where they’ll take her next.

There is a reason Park’s been nicknamed by some the Silent Assassin (although I much prefer the Serene Queen of Golf).  Whether Inbee Park has sent her ball to the center of the fairway or into the thickest rough, whether she has eagled from the fairway, fired off a 20 yard putt directly to the center of the cup, or three-putted and walked off the green with a double bogey, her rhythm is steady, her face is a mask of serene neutrality, and her next swing is inevitable no different from her previous one.

While the LPGA Tour is getting ready to tee it up in Portland Oregon this week Inbee Park is “looking forward to playing before South Korean fans for the first time in a while” at a Korean LPGA (KLPGA) event this week on Jeju Island.  Without a doubt, Park will put on a clinic in patience, perseverance and generosity as she delivers a lesson in athletic excellence to Korea’s next generation of professional women golfers.

Next: Portland Classic Preview

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