INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA | Whew, what a relief. They didn’t say it out loud but that was the reaction of the four South Korean players after they won both their opening four-ball matches against Chinese Taipei at the UL International Crown.
Expectations have been so extreme leading into this event that, at times, it seemed as if anything less than 9-and-8 victories all week would be considered a disappointment by many of the fans who flooded the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea to see the home team. When So Yeon Ryu cozied a birdie putt to within a few inches on the last hole to ensure a sweep for the South Koreans, you could see their shoulders fall. Not joy. Reprieve.
The victory capped a surprisingly subdued day for these biannual matches. For starters, the anticipated crowds didn’t make it out as early as expected. Australians Sarah Jane Smith and Minjee Lee teed off first against England’s Charley Hull and Georgia Hall to a crowd that numbered in the dozens. And that was being generous. When God Save the Queen played during the flag-waving ceremony, there were six people in the grandstands behind the first tee who were not volunteers or staff members. That number steadily increased as the morning went on but the massive hordes didn’t make it out until after lunch and almost all of them hoofed it around with two groups: Sung Hyun Park and I.K. Kim versus Candie Kung and Phoebe Yao (a match the South Koreans won, 1 up) and Ryu and In Gee Chun versus Teresa Lu and Wei-Ling Hsu (a 2-up victory).
