After Inner Search, She Has Taken Control

Se Ri Pak came from South Korea and a culture where the word of the father was final, where the daughter was to be obedient. She came to the United States as an unworldly 20-year-old with limited command of English and less command of life outside a golf course.

Then Pak won two LPGA major titles in six weeks, a singular accomplishment for a rookie of her age. Her powerful swing, her winning smile, her unbridled enthusiasm did not need translation. Galleries grew, TV ratings rose and all of Korea clamored to know about Pak.

Four years later, Pak has won only one more major and struggled through a winless 2000 season. But winning majors is not the measure of how much Pak has evolved or improved.

“Se Ri is fearless,” Lorie Kane said. Kane, an outgoing Canadian, and Nancy Lopez, the LPGA Tour’s greatest ambassador, have become Pak’s closest golfing friends. Kane helped Pak learn English and introduced Pak to the Outback Steakhouse restaurant chain and to the joys of shopping at North American malls.

And Kane has watched Pak, 24, become a woman in charge and not an obedient and unhappy girl.

Pak’s overpowering father is not her omnipresent traveling partner anymore. In the last four years, Pak has fired a coach and a manager, found herself a new caddie, a new management company, a new outlook on golf, on life, on herself. Her career, she says, belongs to her and not to her father, who once made Pak sleep in a graveyard to test her mental strength. And it doesn’t belong to her country, even if she is adored and admired and is a role model to thousands of young girls who want to be golfers like Se Ri.

“It hasn’t been easy for Se Ri,” Kane said. “I went with her to Korea last year and it’s almost scary. People want to literally touch her. And she had to make some hard decisions. She comes from a place where it’s important to obey the father. I give Se Ri so much credit for making some of the decisions she’s made.”

By 2000, Pak had gained nearly 30 pounds, was frowning instead of smiling, became ill with exhaustion and unhappiness and ended up in a Korean hospital where news cameramen sneaked in to film the fallen star.

“I had to think about so many things,” Pak said of her unsatisfactory 2000 season. “I had to come, in my mind, to decide who would be in charge and what I wanted to be.”

What Pak decided was that she wanted to be a winner and she wanted to do things her way.

“I’m in charge of me now,” Pak said. She smiles easily and has no need of a translator. This “me” leads the Office Depot Championship Hosted by Amy Alcott by three shots over Annika Sorenstam and by four over Laura Diaz. “It will be a fun day,” Pak said of playing today in the final group with Sorenstam.

Sorenstam, winner of eight tournaments in 2001 and two this year, including the Kraft Nabisco, the season’s first major, and Karrie Webb have pushed themselves to a higher place than the other tour players.

With her performance as a rookie, Pak was supposed to be in that place. With her maturation over the last four years, Pak will soon be in that place. “I want to be with Annika and Karrie,” Pak said after her second consecutive round of 68 Saturday at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana. “I want to be the best. I am not with them yet, but I am getting closer.”

Last year Pak won five tournaments and her third major. She found in herself the love of the game and of the chase. She lost weight and rediscovered her strength. When she had been in the hospital, unable to lift her head off the pillow, Pak said she came to understand that what had happened to her in 1998, the sudden, unexpected and overwhelming success, the ascension to almost hallowed status in her country, the demands that came from sponsors and her father, could not define her.

“I could not win every week and when I began to understand that in my heart, I could begin to like the game and myself again,” Pak said.

Pak connects with her fans. She will pump a fist or slap her thigh or even give a wink to the gallery after a good shot. She said she can gain energy from the people who cheer. The fans get energy back.

When Pak eagled the 17th Saturday, after making a double-bogey on the same par-five hole Friday, she jumped and the fans howled with happiness. There was an enthusiasm from both golfer and fan that is too often absent on the tour.

“I love what I am doing now,” Pak said. “I am happier and happier. I am working harder and harder. Maybe I didn’t know what would happen when I won so much and I was so young.

“Maybe I didn’t understand what the pressure would feel like. No female athlete in Korea had ever become popular like I was in 1998 and maybe it was overwhelming. But I have it inside me to want to be the best and that is still my goal and always my goal.”

Said Kane: “It was not an easy thing for her to branch out on her own, to take over her life. She did it with her whole country watching and criticizing. And she’s made it work.”

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com