After joining Konkuk University golf coach in 2004
Heekyung Seo, Bomi Lee, Nayeon Choi, Haneul Kim, etc.
Recruiting and raising excellent players from the 2nd and 3rd divisions
LPGA 11 wins-71·56 wins in Korea
Leave a record worth going up in the Guinness Book of Records
I want to report 200 wins before retirement
The goal is to establish a total golf lab
Park Chan-hee (57, photo) Konkuk University professor is being evaluated as a’hidden merit’ of the world’s strongest Korean women’s golf.
On December 20 last year, I met Professor Park, who visited the Munhwa Ilbo in Chungjeong-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul. Konkuk University Golf Department, where Professor Park has served as manager, has won 138 wins in the first part tour of the United States, Japan, and Korea, the world’s top three women’s golf tours so far. The United States won 11, Japan 56 and Korea 71. Bomi Lee won the Itoen Ladies Golf Tournament on the Japan Women’s Professional Golf (JLPGA) Tour in 2015, and won the 100th championship from this school. . This is a record that would be listed in the Guinness Book of Records. Professor Park explained, “It is one of the shining records that we were ranked in the top 10 of 52 consecutive KLPGA Tour competitions from June 2015 to 2017.”
Most of this history of Konkuk University’s golf department began when Professor Park took over as coach in 2004. Konkuk University Golf Department was founded in 1982 as a men’s team at the Seoul campus. Professor Park, who was appointed as a professor in the Department of Sports and Sports in 1998, is the leading player who changed the golf department to a women’s team when moving to Chungju Glocal Campus. Since then, the Golf Department of Konkuk University has grown into the strongest golf team that no one can surpass. After relocating to campus, Professor Park took his life and death to recruit players. At that time, excellent players were sweeping away at Yonsei University and Korea University. I watched the players who would be recruited while living at the golf course where the second and third tours are held during the season for scouting players. However, he was treated as a’traditional trader’ by his parents. After twists and turns, he recruited Seo Hee-kyung as the first female player in the golf club of Konkuk University. In addition, after years of elaboration to bring Lee Bomi, who was attending Inje High School in Gangwon Province, she succeeded in scouting. Afterwards, Choi Na-yeon and Ahn Seon-ju also entered school classes in 2007, and Kim Hye-yoon and Kim Ha-neul came one after another.
Professor Park was a Judo major from Yonsei University. He started as a professor at Konkuk University’s Department of Sports and Sports in 1998, and since 2000, he became the head of the department while making a major in golf. He didn’t even have the expertise to learn golf as an instructor. Since I need to know golf to instruct the players, I went to the field (the venue) and watched the tournament organized by the University Golf Federation from the first day to the last day and lived there. While encouraging students and handing out bananas or drinks one by one, the golf tournament, each player, as well as parental tendencies for five years were identified. He also learned golf theory by subscribing and perusing 5 golf magazines in the US and Japan for 7 years.
Professor Park’s golf skills are at a level with ‘0 handicap’. The best score is 5 under par 67. During the CEO course event at Kingsdale Golf Course in Chungju in October last year, he recorded 7 birdies and 2 bogies in a round with Wonwoo. Normally, I’m going over 2~3 over par, and I’ve hit 2 under par right before. In the regular tee, he maintains the score for under par more than 10 times a year, and in the blue tee in his early 70s. The flying distance is 250 yards, similar to that of female athletes. The hole-in-one was not recorded in Korea, but when I went to Malaysia in 2005 for field training with students, I wrote it in a 190m par 3 hole. I couldn’t see the scene going into the distance. I thought it was a good match, but when I went to the green, I looked for a ball in the hole to see if it went over because there was no ball.
Professor Park said, “When you play golf, you face difficult situations like life. No one plays golf well forever, so if you are faced with difficulties, don’t avoid it and do it. When I admit what I am lacking and the process of such efforts passes, the problem is gradually resolved. In those things, I feel that our lives and golf are similar and I think it is attractive.” Professor Park said, “Athletes also have difficulties, but the important thing is that they do not know. There are also examples of such difficulties becoming a slump for a long time.”
Professor Park emphasizes the importance of physical strength and mental training to players as much as the technical factors of golf. The lack of these two factors can lead to a slump, which can lead to abandoning golf. Prof. Park served as Director of External Cooperation at Konkuk University Glocal Campus for the contribution that Konkuk University has established as one of the most prestigious golf courses.
Professor Park explains to students and parents a system that allows players to smoothly conduct tours and studies, and accepts that they have to spend about six years in college and enroll them. It established the principle that even golf specialty students must complete the same credits as regular students. Instead of giving up midway, they often get a diploma after six years.
Professor Park said, “The current achievements were well followed by the players, and thanks to the active support from the university,” said Professor Park.
Prof. Park continued, “We plan to create a’Golf Total Research Institute’ in the future,” he said. To this end, one of the goals is to create a program that systematizes not only physical strength, mentality, and skill, but also how to efficiently run the tour.
Reporter Choi Myung-shik [email protected]