Rising Star Park Yeji Leads South Korea’s New Golden Generation in Women’s Golf

Teenage Korean women golfers are hot right now.

Golf enthusiasts may remember 15-year-old Lee Hyo-seon, a Korean amateur who won the Japan Women’s Golf Major “World Ladies Championship Salonpas Cup” held in May this year.

On July 23, she registered as a member of the Japan Tour. Her “turning pro” in Japan also attracted a lot of attention. She is considered to have decided to turn pro in Japan because the Korean Women’s (KLPGA) Tour requires players to be at least 18 years old to play on the tour. It is said that she will not start competing until September, but even though she is only 15 years old, she is already a big deal and is expected to create a new sensation on the Japanese tour.

Kim Min-seol, a 178-centimeter-tall skip who was recommended to play in this year’s Suntory Ladies by Ai Miyazato, is also 18 years old and just decided to turn pro on the Korean Tour in July. At the “Suntory Ladies,” she was in the same group with Reo Takeda, who has won three times this season, and her big drive was enough to excite the gallery as they competed for the longest distance of the driver. He is a promising player who is aiming to advance to the U.S. Tour and win a championship in the future.

Meanwhile, a new promising teenager is making headlines in Korea. She is 19-year-old Park Ye-ji, a member of the Korean National Team.

Blessed with a stature of 171 cm in height, he was a sub-member of the Korean national team from 2009 to 2010, and was promoted to a regular member of the national team in 2011. In 2011, she was promoted to a full member of the national team, and in the same year won the Korean Women’s Amateur Championship and turned pro. She won her first victory in Korea’s third-division “Jump Tour” and ranked 34th in the qualifying round, and is now struggling on the regular first-division tour as a rookie this season.

His weapon is a driver shot that makes use of his height, and even though he is still in his teens, he boasts an average distance of 240 yards. Last year off-season, he has been practicing mainly to improve his distance, short game, and putting. He also has an impressive smile, and combined with his looks, he is rapidly gaining popularity among golf fans.

However, the high level of competition on the regular tour seems to have left some players perplexed, and he failed to qualify for five of his 12 tournaments this season. She had been struggling, but in July, she won the eighth round of the KLPGA 2024 Dream Tour with Crowning, a two-division tour event in which she was recommended to play. He showed improvement in the accuracy of his iron shots, recording a 94.44% par-on-percentage over the two days of the tournament, and only missed the green twice on the first day after playing 36 holes. After the match, he said, “I am now seeded for the second division tour,

After the match, he said, “Now that I have the seeding for the second division tour, I want to finish the rest of the season with a good record and get the seeding for the regular tour next season.

I hope to finish the rest of the season on a high note and get seeded for the regular tour next season,” he said after the match.

It is said that the teenagers in Korea are currently in their “golden age. It may not be long before many of them cross the ocean and join the Japan Tour.