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Golfer Kim Hyo-joo overcomes jinx of 2nd year in LPGA

Posted November. 26, 2016 07:20,   

Updated November. 26, 2016 08:39

한국어
Kim Hyo-joo (21), who used to be nicknamed "genius girl in the field," suffered from severe jinx of her second year in the LPGA Tour in this past season.

She had high expectations up until in January when she won the Bahamas Classic, the season’s opener, but ended the season with just one title after going through rollercoaster-like performance. She ranked 13th in the world’s purse money rankings last year when she was a rookie player, but saw her ranking decline to 20th this year. She failed to pass the qualifying round at four events as her performance fluctuated wildly. “I feel great that the season is over. I now have time to exercise and improve skills that I have not performed well thus far” Kim said, when this reporter met her at Dongrae Benest Country Club in Busan on Friday.

Kim singled out her iron shots that have become less precise as the cause for her underperformance. She achieved five wins in the Korean LPGA Tour by banking on her driving accuracy percentage of 78 percent (ranked first) in 2014, and raked in over 1 billion won (850,000 US dollars) in purse money in a single season for the first time after turning pro. However, her driving accuracy percentage fell to 67 percent or 76th place in global rankings in this past season. “Since I managed to have par-on at just half while playing 18 holes, I could not garner even three birdies in a round. My wish for the New Year is to place many of my shots on the green,” she said.

Kim will start her training to prepare herself for next season in Thailand next month. “I urgently need to strengthen my physical stamina. As the season was approaching the end, I had the flying distance of my shots decrease by more than 10 yards, and I got easily exhausted. I will jog and strengthen my muscles as I did at high school. I urgently need to regain confidence in my swing.”



Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com