Si Ri Pak has announced that the 2016 season will be her last playing on the LPGA Tour. Pak has fashioned a hall of fame career with 25 LPGA Titles and five major championships. But her impact goes far beyond her world class statistics.
Pak burst on the the scene in 1998 as a rookie when she won four tournaments including two majors, the McDonald’s LPGA Championship and the U.S. Women’s Open. That season was the spark that ignited an athletic and cultural revolution in her home of South Korea.
Parents in South Korea used Pak as the model of a champion for all their children. Pak’s own father had nurtured his young daughter to work hard and do more than any of her competitors as she trained in her first sport as a track star.
Pak’s early career was the bedrock that the South Korean’s used to develop a class of female golfers that dominates the world of golf. Without Pak that may never have happened but it did and Pak grew to rock star proportions in her homeland.
She may be able to walk into a Starbucks in the states and go unrecognized but in South Korea it’s Tiger Woods status.
Pak, 38 says she knew a few years ago she wanted to retire but had yet to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Now she has figured it out: she wants to help young South Korean golfers become better people, not just better golfers.
Randall Mell of The Golf Channel profiles Pak and her announcement.
Pak says the next part of her life is about addressing this deficiency she feels. It’s about completing herself. But she believes the best way to do this is by addressing the deficiencies she sees in the monster she created back in her homeland. It’s by helping young players make sure they work on completing themselves, too.
Pak would like to open a school to train athletes, but not just train them for sport. She wants to train hearts, minds and souls, too.
Pak believes she can find the fulfillment that she aches for as a person by helping young South Korean athletes find fulfillment as complete human beings.
“Life not all about winning, losing, practicing and then winning, losing, practicing,” Pak said. “It’s balance, feeling right balance. It’s practicing life. I’m still developing myself, and I’m so far behind.”
“I took care of my golf,” Pak said. “I didn’t take care of myself. My golf, it’s good. As a person, I don’t think I’m good, not good enough.”
Pak is only 38 and maybe she is having a bit of an early mid-life crisis. She’s still young in golfer years but has looked inside herself and isn’t satisfied.
I find it odd that she says she feels incomplete. But no one knows what is in the mind or hearts of another person.
In all my years of watching the LPGA I have come to appreciate Pak for more than just her statistics.
Pak played the game as a true sportswoman. She was all class all the time and was as dignified a player as there is on any tour.
Her grace and sportsmanship will be missed but her influence will live on in every female Korean golfer that ever tees it up, whether it’s at a driving range in Korea or a major championship on the LPGA.
If she can have a fraction of the success of her golfing career in the years to come she’ll certainly become whole and satisfied as a person. I wish her all the best.
Click here for Randall Mell’s article.
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