TOUR DE FORCE

By TIM KAWAKAMI

Aug. 5, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WINDSOR, Canada —

They were five weeks that shook the world of women’s golf, and pretty much wiped out the wondrous 20-year-old who did all the shaking and rousing record-breaking.

By the time rookie Se Ri Pak brought her sweet swing and her legions of fans here last week for the du Maurier Classic, the LPGA Tour’s final major tournament, she was a frail shell of her recently dominant self.

Drained emotionally, she was wobbly off the tee, gritting out a five-under, 41st-place finish with sheer talent and willpower. Hungrily eyeing her first week off since the end of June, she gasped in anguish after Friday’s round, when she was told informed that her presence was requested in the media tent yet again.

Brandie Burton won the tournament last Sunday. Pak won a precious week off to return to her American base, Orlando, Fla., to rest up for the British Women’s Open next week.

What will she do with the time off?

“Maybe practice a little,” Pak said wearily. “Then I just rest. I want to sleep.”

Pak journalism, apparently, can take a mighty toll.

“Everything is different now,” said her manager, Steve Kil, looking frayed himself amid the electric atmosphere created by her three victories in the previous four weeks, and victories in the previous two major tournaments.

“She’s burned out now. . . . If we allow all the media requests and autograph requests, she’ll be burned out. And she will have a short career. And I don’t want that to happen.”

Nobody wants that to happen, of course, not as long as Pak draws a thousands-strong crowd to watch her every swing; not as long as her shy smile and powerful shot-making style evoke memories of the last epic arrival in women’s golf, Nancy Lopez and her nine-victory 1978 rookie season.

“A young Korean girl, that she would capture the imagination and the hopes of the American fans, it’s very out of the ordinary,” said television commentator and former player Judy Rankin.

“In this game--and we’ve seen it in baseball this year too--people do gather to see a phenom and a record-breaker. That seems to be true regardless of the gender, the age, the heritage, whatever. They want to have seen history.”

It’s history, though, achieved with a smile. Pak rarely changes her stony expression on the golf course, but off it, she giggles and speaks passable English--and says she hopes to become as successful an ambassador for the game as her idol, Lopez.

She can declare that her only goal is to become the greatest women’s golfer ever, then in the same interview mention that she has recently bought a dog, and named it Happy.

“People say I look focused,” Pak said. “I cannot feel it. It is automatic. I think this is my style. Sometimes I don’t have nice face. Sometimes poker face.”

After winning the U.S. Women’s Open in July, Pak was asked if she felt nervous, and answered, “No, I don’t have nervous.”

Rankin said, “I think she has a nice way about her. I think that she has sort of the stoic demeanor on the golf course. But when she speaks, she’s such a soft and gentle-sounding person. That contradiction is good, real good.”

Pak recorded her first tour victory in May, winning the McDonald’s LPGA Classic, a major. But that was only a foreshadowing of the drama ahead.

In early July, on the brutal Blackwolf Run course in Kohler, Wis., Pak outlasted amateur Jenny Chuasiriporn in a 20-hole playoff after four grueling rounds, becoming the youngest winner of the U.S. Women’s Open, her second major victory.

Pak followed that up four days later with the lowest round in the history of the LPGA, a 61 in the second-round of the Jamie Farr Kroger Classic, on her way to a 261, the lowest 72-hole total score in LPGA history.

Then, a week before the du Maurier, Pak won again, taking the Giant Eagle LPGA Classic and vaulting to the top of the money list, just ahead of Sweden’s Annika Sorenstam.

“With Se Ri, you just count down the holes until she catches you,” said Laura Davies, a 16-time tour winner.

Pak’s caddie, Jeff Cable, whose 6-foot-5, 240-pound-plus frame gives him the air of a bodyguard standing next to the 5-6 Pak, and whom Pak has nicknamed “Tree,” pointed to one moment in the second round as a sign of her competitive spirit--and her wry personality.

Pak hooked her drive into the woods on the eighth hole, 180 yards from the green, which was guarded by a stream. Pak grabbed afour-iron, planning a miracle shot. Cable argued with her.

Finally, Pak let Cable hand her a wedge to chip out, knocked her third shot within 10 feet, and one-putted for par.

“I tried to stare at her a little bit after she made the putt,” Cable said. “She was filling out the scorecard, looked at me and said, ‘What? WHAT?’ ”

Suddenly, the LPGA boasts a fascinating triumvirate of under-30 superstars--Pak, 27-year-old Sorenstam, and 23-year-old Australian Karrie Webb.

Sorenstam, still regarded as the top player on tour, answered Pak’s consecutive victories in July by winning the JAL Big Apple Classic, then took back the money lead with a second-place finish at the du Maurier.

“You guys forget about Annika, and then she gets ticked off and wins,” said veteran Meg Mallon.

Pak herself has indicated that the recent rigorous schedule could use a tooling down, though she’s finding it increasingly hard to say no to tournament promoters who clamor for her presence to boost attendance and spike the TV ratings.

“She should be given a great deal of credit for the way she has played right on through to do good things for the LPGA and for women’s golf,” Rankin said. “No one would’ve faulted her if [she had taken a week off] sooner. I mean, a lot of people would’ve been sorry, but no one would’ve faulted her.

“But she wants to do things right by people. It’s those little things. So far, she’s done all the little things in a very nice way.”

Pak has paid a price for her tight schedule, however, beyond the exhaustion.

She hasn’t returned to South Korea since she left in 1996 to work with renowned teacher David Leadbetter. Recently, she turned down a request from the South Korean president to return for a parade in her honor.

Said Kil, “When she left, she left home. When you leave home, usually you’ve got to stay away until you prove yourself or you accomplish what you’ve planned. We are here until we achieve something. Then we will go home and talk about the past.”

Samsung, the Korean electronics giant that signed Pak two years ago to a 10-year sponsorship deal, is feverishly renegotiating it to reflect Pak’s new status in the sport. Among Korean athletes, only the Dodgers’ Chan Ho Park can rival Pak’s popularity.

“Se Ri is like Michael Jordan in Korea,” Kil said. “Park is Scottie Pippen.”

Joon Chul Pak, Se Ri’s father, the architect of Pak’s meteoric rise, proudly recounts the military-like drills and discipline he inflicted upon his daughter since before she was a teenager.

Se Ri, who did not take up golf seriously until she was 14, ran up and down 15 stories of stairs, backward and forward, to produce the mammoth muscles in her legs, the source of her gliding power on the golf course.

Joon Chul also made her confront her fears by spending as much time as possible near a cemetery, chipping balls and staying into the night.

“To a certain number of American people, it could be viewed as child abuse,” Joon Chul Pak told the Toronto Star. “But in the cultural background in Korea, it can be understood and tolerated.”

As an amateur, Se Ri won 30 events in Asia, turned pro in 1996 and won six Korean events of the 14 she entered. She also finished second seven times. Joon Chul decided it was time to get ready for the American tour, moving her to Orlando to be close to Leadbetter, with the help of the Samsung deal.

Joon Chul has another controversial side: A Korean weekly reported last month that he fled to Hawaii for several months in 1988 because of a police crackdown on organized crime, and Joon Chul himself does not deny that he had participated in some illegal activity.

Said Se Ri: “He’s pushed a lot. I know why. He wanted to make me more strong, my body and my mind, everything, because the players here are really strong. If I have to play here, I have to be strong. So he knows. He keeps pushing.

“I know he’s sad because I was only 15, 16, 17. I like to have fun with friends. But no friends, just practice. He knows I’m a little tired. But he knows what it’s like here, so he just kept pushing. He made me strong.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

VERSUS THE BEST

Comparing Pak to other rookies through 18 events:

SE RI PAK (1998)

Wins: 4 (4 Top 10s)

Missed Cuts: 1

KARRIE WEBB (‘96)

Wins: 2 (10 Top 10s)

Missed Cuts: 1

ANNIKA SORENSTAM (‘94)

Wins: 0 (3 Top 10s)

Missed Cuts: 4

JULI INKSTER (‘83-84)

Wins: 2 (6 Top 10s)

Missed Cuts: 2

NANCY LOPEZ (‘77-78)

Wins: 5 (11 Top 10s)

Missed Cuts: 0

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

THE LAST FIVE

U.S. WOMEN’S OPEN

Finish: 1st (+6, 290)*

Earnings: $267,500

JAMIE FARR

KROGER CLASSIC

Finish: 1st (-23, 261)

Earnings: $120,000

JAL BIG APPLE CLASSIC

Finish: 44th (+4, 288)

Earnings: $3,041

GIANT EAGE LPGA CLASSIC

Finish: 1st (-15, 201)

Earnings: $120,000

DUMAURIER CLASSIC

Finish: 41st (-5, 283)

Earnings: $5,434

* won in sudden-death playoff

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Coming on Strong

Se Ri Pak has won three of the past five LPGA tournaments she has entered. A look at how she has fared in the events she has played in so far in 1998 (does not include one missed cut):

Event: Finish

HealthSouth Inaugural: 13th

L.A. Women’s Championship: 45th

Welch’s/Circle K Championship: 48th

Standard Register Ping: 36th

Longs Drugs Challenge: 11th

Chick-fil-A Charity Championship: 22nd

Titleholders Championship: 43rd

Sara Lee Classic: 32nd

McDonald’s LPGA Championship*: 1st

Wegman’s Rochester International: 37th

Michelob Light Classic: 26th