01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Wildly popular in her native Korea, Se Ri Pak has a considerably lower profile in the United States, despite having won 23 LPGA Tour events, including five major championships

Her most recent major triumph was June 11, at the LPGA Championship in Havre de Grace, Md., and it came in highly-dramatic fashion -- when she hit a utility club 201 yards from the fairway on the first extra hole of a playoff with Karrie Webb to within four inches of the cup.

That spectacular shot capped a determined comeback effort by the 28-year-old Pak, who failed to finish higher than 27th last year while battling a series of injuries -- including one to the middle finger of her left hand incurred while hacking out of the rough at the British Open in July that sidelined her for the remainder of the year.

Although she has Hall of Fame credentials, Pak always has been overshadowed on the LPGA Tour -- first by Annika Sorenstam, and now by a promising array of talented young players, headed by 16-year-old Michele Wie, even though Wie has yet to win a professional tournament.

The fact Pak also has to battle an ever-increasing number of increasingly-talented young Korean golfers is her own fault. It was her success that created a golf boom among young girls in her native land.

She was one of only two Koreans on the Tour in 1998 when, at the age of 20, she won both the U.S. Women's Open and the LPGA Championship.

"I have got to give a lot of credit to her," Grace Park, a fellow Korean, said of Pak. "Ever since she joined the Tour, it opened a huge door for all the Korean players."

There now are 32 Koreans on Tour, and, of the 14 LPGA events played prior to last weekend, seven of them were won by Korean players -- none of which was a repeat winner.

Pak won repeatedly in her early years on Tour -- four times as a rookie in '98, four more in '99, five in 2000, and five again in '01. But Sorenstam won more, and Pak, whose English initially was limited, was a distant second in visibility and popularity in the U.S.

Not in Korea, however. Which was a mixed blessing. The adulation and attention she received at home was gratifying in some ways, but oppressive in others. She felt tremendous pressure to continue to succeed, which drained the joy from the game for her. She practiced relentlessly, yet wasn't winning as often. She was hurting both physically and mentally last year -- "I hated golf," she said -- when her injuries forced her to take a break from the game for the first time since she was a kid.

That turned out to be a blessing. Rejuvenated physically and emotionally, she is back on top of her game, as she showed at Havre de Grace. Which means she will be a strong contender to win her second Open, and sixth major, at Newport.

-- JIM DONALDSON