Annie Park, in her own words

I'm not a subscriber....can you copy and paste the article, please.
UCLA > USC.

I tried cutting & pasting but it came out a jumbled mess. The story is littered with photos and ads which translate to reams of unrecognizable code when pasted. But I think if you search Google for "annie park wall street journal" you should get a direct link that will work without paying. Good luck!

I did it the old school way today...dropped by the library, leafed through a bunch of WSJ issues from last week, found the article, and photocopied it. I started re-typing it and would be happy to post it here in the near future...has a lot of stuff from her early days that I didn't know; HF will have to do a re-write of her S.S. profile.

It was the 4/7 paper. Nothing about Allison in the article.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

GOLF & GETAWAYS

Friday, April 7, 2017
Page M5

HOUSE CALL | ANNIE PARK

Golf Edged Out Korean Dance

The LPGA pro found her passion in her immigrant mother’s hobby

People think I’m shy. And I am – at first. But with my friends, I’m embarrassingly outgoing. Once I’m comfortable, it’s hard to hide my emotions, except on the golf course. Something changes out there and I get really focused. It’s about dedication and determination.

I was born in the College Point section of Queens, N.Y. Two years later, in 1997, my family moved to nearby Levittown. My parents had saved enough to purchase their first home since immigrating to the States from South Korea in 1983.

When my mother, Ann, and my father, Bruce, first arrived in the U.S., they lived in New Orleans, where they had family and friends. A few months later they decided to move to the Flushing section of Queens, where there was a sizable Korean community.

As a child, hearing my parents’ stories about leaving Korea and finding their way here was inspiring. They arrived with very little money and almost no English. They didn’t have family or a network of friends in Queens to help them.

In Flushing, they opened a nail salon and soon established a nail-salon franchise, which allowed them to buy the white, two-story Colonial-style house in Levittown. They became U.S. citizens when I was in middle school.

My older sisters, Bora and Bo, and I each had our own room. Bora is 14 years older than me, and when she left for college, Bo and I used her room as communal play space.

Levittown didn’t have much of a Korean community, so my mother wanted to be sure I grew up with a sense of my cultural identity. We spoke Korean at home and my mom, a great cook, made a lot Korean dishes. In kindergarten, she also enrolled me in a Korean cultural dance class after school.

But fitting in was tough in Levittown. I was the only Korean student in my middle school, and as a first-generation American, I was different from most of my friends whose families had been here for a long time.

As far back as I can remember, my mom played golf at the public Bethpage state golf course. All of her friends played the sport and she loved playing on her days off from work. She was very competitive. One day when I was 8, I went with her to the driving range in nearby New Hyde Park and watched her hit balls.

At some point, she turned to me and said, “Why don’t you hit a few?” I was a natural from my first swing, and mom saw my potential. From that point forward, she took me along every time she played.

At first I had no real passion for the game. It was sort of in the way of my after-school dance classes. But once I began taking golf lessons at Spring Rock Driving Range and then at the Bethpage course, my passion and commitment grew.

I had to either stick with cultural dance or start serious training as a golfer. There wasn’t room for both.

It didn’t take long for me to become competitive. When I was 10, I moved with my mom to Howie-in-the-Hills, Fla., to train year-round at a golf academy, where I also went to school.

Two years later, we moved to Lake Mary, Fla. While playing there, I met golf instructor Sean Foley, before he began working with Tiger Woods. Sean saw something in me and took me on. He revolutionized my swing, and I still train with him today.

I returned to New York when I was 14. In high school, balancing homework, golf and being a teenager was tough. I loved golf and was motivated to make it all work.

In school, classmates called me “the golfer.” At the time, I didn’t understand why. I thought they were making fun of me or it was bad to be a golfer. Now, I realize it was simply who I was.

Throughout high school, I played in amateur golf tournaments. There was a lot of pressure to keep my grades up. I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were some setbacks. When I applied to colleges, USC offered me a full golf scholarship. I moved to California in 2013 and immediately found myself homesick. But after a few months, I made friends and adapted.

I majored in communications because I wanted to understand how the media worked. I also knew that the skills I learned would come in handy during on-camera interviews. In my freshman year, I helped USC win the NCAA Women’s Golf Team title and I won the individual title. In my junior year, I earned my LPGA tour card, which was a dream come true. My family was so proud of me. My mom still accompanies me on tours and sometimes caddies for me.

Today I live in Orlando, Fla. I moved here after graduation last December to train year-round. Once again, I’m on my own. I leased an apartment for the first year to see how I like living here. My apartment is just a space to crash, since I’m either on the course or touring.

I miss New York and seeing my mom all the time. At home, I used to have my nails done weekly at my mom’s salon. Now I have to find time to have them done at a salon here. Believe it or not, I can’t paint my own nails.

- As told to Marc Myers
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Annie Park, 21, is a professional golfer who joined the LPGA tour last year. In 2013, while at USC, she was the NCAA individual champion, and in 2015 she won both the LPGA’s Symetra Player of the Year and the Gaelle Truet Rookie of the Year.

Thanks Philk. I find it interesting, these stories about Korean-American golfers. They are the bridge between two major golf cultures that exist largely separate of each other. Definitely going to root for Annie Park now. She is a Long Islander unfortunately, but she is also a Bethpager, which would make her a muni golfer. I'm a fan of that place. I've been to the range that's mentioned in the story too. (did a little blog on it www.legitimategolf.com/2014/10/roadrange-spring-rock-golf-center-new.html) You walk in the door you feel like you are in middle of Flushing K-Town. It's so Korean, and so hardcore. They sell the biggest buckets I've ever seen.