Korea falls short of winning Crown, looks ahead to 2018
Korea finished 2-2 in singles match play and 6-4 overall to place second in the UL International Crown on Sunday. Falling one point shy of the United States, who won the Crown with 13 points, Korea had to endure an obstacle that none of the other four teams dealt with.
The number one overall seed heading into the competition had to qualify for the singles session the same day those singles matches were played at Merit Club in Gurnee.
Because of a weather delay at the end of team-play on Saturday, Korea was forced to finish their four-ball matches against Australia on Sunday morning before the singles matches began. Coming into the day with four points and three behind Pool A leaders Chinese-Taipei, Korea finished their team-play with a sweep of Australia to move up to first in their pool and qualify for the singles session. Just a few hours later, Amy Yang was back on the course to tee off the first of four singles matches for Korea.
Before the UL International Crown began, many thought that Korea would have the best chance to win, given that their team consisted of four of the top 12 players in the world.
However, the path to their second-place finish was not what many would have expected. To start, Inbee Park, who was ranked third in the world by Rolex Rankings, was scheduled to play with Korea until a thumb injury kept her from competing. The rain on Saturday that led to continuations early Sunday morning didn't help either.
When the singles sessions got underway, Korea dug itself into a hole by losing its first two matches to Japan and Chinese-Taipei, pushing them back to fourth place in the standings with just eight points.
At that point, they needed a lot of cards to fall into place. They needed to win their remaining matches against the U.S. and England, Japan to defeat England, England to beat or tie Chinese-Taipei and for the U.S. and England to tie.
And it almost happened.
Sei Young Kim defeated England's Charley Hull convincingly in a 5-and-4 victory, and So Yeon Ryu, who filled in for Park, survived a comeback from Lexi Thompson, the world's fourth best player, to win 2-and-1.
Everything else fell in place except for Cristie Kerr's win over England's Mel Reid, which clinched the title for the United States. Despite the obstacles, Korea still managed to recover and place second overall, and the team recognizes the solid effort put into today by the team.
"We played only morning a couple holes," Kim, ranked fifth in the world, said. "I got great striking the ball, and feels good, my putter. So, it was good work today."
There were moments in Kim and Ryu's matches where it looked as if Korea would fall short of even placing second, but they responded to their opponents' strong play with resilience.
"Only thing I was thinking about was just winning the match for my country, so I didn't care about what the spectators were yelling and what kind of names the spectators were yelling," Ryu said. "I really enjoyed it, and I felt like my game has improved after this tournament."
Korea couldn't take home the UL International Crown this year, but they'll have a chance to do so in 2018 on their home turf at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea.
"We couldn't win the tournament, but anyway, we still finished better than last time," Ryu said. "Last time we finished third and this year second, so hopefully we can get a crown in 2018."