Havre De Grace, Md. – Burned out, injured and all but forgotten for two years, Se Ri Pak returned to the spotlight in stunning fashion Sunday when her utility club from 201 yards stopped 3 inches from the hole for a sudden-death playoff victory over Karrie Webb in the LPGA Championship.
Pak atoned for a three-putt bogey on the 18th hole that kept her from winning in regulation, delivering a spectacular finish to a tournament that was up for grabs in the final two hours at Bulle Rock.
“I’m very happy to be back again,” Pak said. “I’m a very lucky person. I’m as happy a person has ever been.”
It all must have looked familiar to Webb, who was trying to capture the second leg of the Grand Slam.
Just two months ago, Webb holed a pitching wedge from 116 yards on the 18th hole at the Kraft Nabisco Championship for an eagle that got her into a playoff, and her first major in four years.
“I thought I was getting my own medicine,” Webb said.
Webb also had gone through some struggles while retooling her swing, and after winning the Kraft Nabisco, Pak saw her a few weeks later and gave her a big hug.
“She told me, ‘Now it’s my turn. I’ll win the next one,”‘ Webb recalled.
Michelle Wie was among six players who had a chance to win or get into a playoff on the final hole, but the 16-year-old from Hawaii fell short.
Pak’s most recent victory was two years ago at the Michelob Ultra Open, which gave her enough points for the World Golf Hall of Fame. Then, the 28-year-old South Korean and her electric smile all but vanished from the LPGA Tour, and she sat out the last three months of the 2005 season to get healthy and get happy.
She acknowledged being burned out, and considered her injury a gift because it forced her to stop playing. She was never more happy on the golf course Sunday, especially after watching her utility club – the equivalent of a 4-iron – shot head for the hole. It stopped a few turns short, all but clinching victory.
Webb, who missed birdie putts of 4 and 10 feet on the last two holes in regulation, hit her approach in the playoff to about 20 feet, but the putt to force another hole veered to the left.
Pak won her fifth major, and joined Mickey Wright, Kathy Whitworth, Patty Sheehan and Annika Sorenstam as the only three-time winners of the LPGA Championship.
Wie’s third birdie in a five-hole stretch brought her within one of the lead, but she missed the 16th green with a wedge and watched her 4-foot par putt spin 270 degrees out of the cup. She narrowly missed an 8-foot birdie putt on the 171-yard 17th, then had to make a 50-foot birdie putt on the 18th to join the playoff. She wound up three-putting for bogey and a 72 to tie for fifth.
“I feel like I’m getting closer and closer,” she said. “It shows a lot that I played my ‘B’ game and I’m still in the top five.”
