What's the secret?

By Park Moo-jong

"What's the secret?" "Why are Korean women so good (in golf)?"

These are two of signature questions many of my foreign acquaintances used to ask me over the past two decades.

The Korean ladies again fascinated and stunned not only golf lovers, but others across the world by dominating the leaderboard at the HSBC Women's Champions in Singapore last weekend.

The year's fourth LPGA tour was a party for Koreans plus ethnic Koreans in the U.S., New Zealand and Australia.

The Korean women proved their prowess by sweeping the year's second, third and fourth LPGA tournament in a row: Jang Ha-na at ISPS Handa Women's Australia Open; Amy Yang at Honda LPGA Thailand; and Park In-bee at HSBC event this time.

Park also won the gold medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics to become the first female Olympic champion.

It's interesting that Korean female golfers used to comfort their people at difficult times. Some people may say, "What a coincidence!"

Nineteen years ago back in 1998, then 20-year-old Pak Se-ri appeared all of a sudden to give hope and courage to the people by capturing the year's U.S. Women Open Golf Championship against all odds.

It is still vivid in our memory that we, the Korean people, were desperate to tide over the 1997 foreign currency crisis, dubbed here "IMF crisis," that almost forced the nation to the brink of moratorium.

The Republic of Korea today is going through more hard times due to political and security unrest following the parliamentary impeachment of President Park Geun-hye and North Korea's mounting nuclear threats.

At this very difficult time, Park In-bee made the distressed people happy by coming from behind to win the HSBC championship on Sunday.

Furthermore, among the top 11 rankers of the tournament are eight Koreans, including Korean-American Michelle Wee and Korean-Newzealander Lydia Ko. The other two are runner-up Ariya Jutanagarn of Thailand, Brook Henderson of Canada and joint seventh Anna Nordqvist of Sweden.

The term, "The Korean Invasion" into the lady golf world, is not new at all to the world people like the "British Invasion" into the global pop music in the 1970s.

And now, the question is "What makes Korean women so good? What's the secret?" The world may be jealousy. (I'm worried that the LPGA may be considering a way to limit the entry to any contest per country).

Almost all golf experts abroad agree on "parenting." Even some critics say that "it begins and ends with parenting." Many caddies who were on the bag for Koreans agree.

The idea is not wrong as testified by Pak Se-ri's father, who was "notorious" for training his kid at a mountain graveyard in order to help build up her courage.

But the Korean female golfers deserve what they are now.

They practice. They push themselves hard and hard. During many tour tournaments, Korean players, finishing a round, remain on the putting green and practice long. All their bags, of course, bear Korean flags.

Called "Se-ri Kids (Pak was the head coach of the South Korean female golf team to the Rio Games), the young Korean players were inspired to follow in the footsteps of Pak, who ignited the popularity of women's golf in the nation winning the U.S. Open in 1998.

They practice, practice and practice and that's the reason they win.

But I think they also owe much to what they are Koreans, who have both innate and acquired manual dexterity. It may sound strange a little to foreigners.

Korean women, in particular, are talented in sports using hands, as proved by archers, the undisputed world and Olympic champions. They are also strong in handball, table tennis and so on. In other fields, they are good at sewing, embroidery, piano, violin, etc.

Koreans also acquire their craftsmanship from the use of "steel" chopsticks from the ages of three or four.
As a common sense, Koreans are the sole people in the world who use the thin steel chopsticks, compared to other Asians like Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese using wooden ones.

With the steel chopsticks, Korean can pick any food, of course except soup, on the table, like "kongjaban" or black bean cooked in soy sauce.

I read an episode of Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), the author of "The Good Earth" that earned the American writer the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature, who founded the Pearl S. Buck Foundation in Korea in 1964 for the Korean War orphans, especially, half-bloods. (A memorial ceremony to mark the 44th anniversary of her death was held on March 6 at the Pearl S. Buck Memorial Hall in Bucheon).

When she visited an orphanage in Bucheon near Seoul sometime, orphans there were taking their lunch. Among the side dishes was kongjaban, which was one of the then most "popular" food for its low price.

She was surprised upon seeing a four-year-old kid pick a black bean, the size of a green pea, without difficulty and put it into her mouth. "How can you pick that small bean so easily?" according to the episode.

It is not too much at all to say that the secret is effort, supported by natural gift.

I've heard numerous times that "we, Koreans, are so good, so if the politicians did well, we would have no problem and could become one of the best in the world."

Park Moo-jong is the Korea Time advisor. He was the president-publisher of the nation's first English newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after he served as a reporter of the daily since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com.