Post by HappyFan on Jan 9, 2016 0:34:04 GMT
This article gives even more details about In Gee's charitable efforts, and talks about some other KLPGA golfers as well. Dig it!
Santas on the Green
By Yang Dong-hee
About 150 members of pro-golfer Chun In-jee's fan club gathered at a year-end party on Dec. 19, in Suwon city to bid a temporary farewell to their hero, who left for the United States for the LPGA tour last Sunday.
Upon recollecting the unbelievable accomplishments she made over the past year, Chun, 21 years old, turned emotional and shed tears in front of the fan club members who may come to the LPGA tournaments to follow her at every hole with victory signs, all wearing yellow "Flying Dumbo" hats. Dumbo is a famous Disney character, which became the nick name of Korea's No.1 female golfer.
"I was totally overwhelmed with the warm-hearts of so many fans and became emotional when I thought about not being able to see them any more on the U.S. greens." said Chun, this year's money winner in the KLPGA, who is with "Bright Future" management team.
The college sophomore made history by winning the major championship tournaments of the LPGA, JLPGA and KLPGA in one year. When she won the U.S. Open last July, it was not reported in the newspapers that she donated $10,000 to needy cancer patients at a local hospital.
During the recent farewell party, Chun's fans donated 20 million won and Chun matched that amount to give a total of 40 million won to the children of southeast Asian immigrant families.
When Chun won the Japan's World Ladies' Golf Championship last May as the youngest player ever to win the major tournament, she was acclaimed as "the beautiful golfer with dignity" by most Japanese media. Japanese golf fans were instantly captivated by the charms of the Korean golfer, who won another major championship the following October during her second visit to Japan.
One Japanese golf journal wrote; "Chun In-jee is stunningly beautiful, but her kokoro (heart) is even more beautiful." The article came out when she donated the Mercedes Benz she won along with the prize money earned from her first major tournament to the victims of the east Japan earthquake.
On the same day of Chun's party in the same city, some 200 golf fans, many of them from Japan, had a joyful time celebrating the most successful year in the JLPGA tour for Lee Bo-mi. She became the first female golfer ever in Japan whose prize money exceeded 200 million yen a year. Out of her 15 JLPGA wins, she won a record seven tournaments this year to be the 2015 money winner.
Lee, who is routinely called "Bomi-zzang", or "Smile Candy," is readily seen on the covers of many golf publications in newsstands and book stores. Asked about her popularity, a Japanese reporter working at Nikkan Sports replied, "Explosive. It's a syndrome."
She (Bo Mee Lee) also donated 10 million yen to the nuclear stricken children in the east Japan. She said, "Children stricken with the nuclear disaster cannot do anything. I'd like to give them a little, at the very least, just a little hope."
In an invitational golf tournament held in PyeongcCang, Lee Bo-mee's hometown in Gangwon-do, 110 Japanese golf fans flew in from Japan. There are 2,000 passionate fans in Japan for Lee Bo-mi, and what they like most about her is the success story of a poor mountainside girl, in addition to the innocent face and warm heart helping others.
Professional golfer Kim Hae-rym has yet to win a tournament in spite of her ninth year endeavors in the KLPGA tour. But her records in the KLPGA are steadily going up. In this year's 28 tournaments, she ended up in second and third place twice each, and within the top ten 12 times.
Kim acquired her full seed in the KLPGA in 2012 when her ranking was 28th with total prize money of little over 100 milllion won. It went up gradually to 25th, 17th and 9th this year.
Ever since 2007 when she turned pro, she (Hae Rym Kim) has kept her own promise to herself to donate 10 percent out of her prize money. In the first year in the KLPGA minor tour, she earned 6.8 million won, and she went to her Cheongwon-gun county office with 680,000 won to donate. That was the beginning of her beautiful story.
She has no manager and does everything by herself. Kim, now 26 years old, is suddenly very busy these days as her donations and charity activities as a ‘nameless' professional golfer for a long time came under the spotlight of the press.
As she passed the membership test of the KLPGA, her father gave up a small business he had managed in order to become her driver and manager. When asked why her father so confident about her success, Kim said, "My father just believed in me from the beginning." And during the very difficult early years, she did not stop or skip donations.
Her parents would encourage her donations, saying, "We are okay as long as we are not starving. Let's look around us at our more unfortunate neighbors," according to Kim.
"At first, it was a little difficult to understand, but now I can concentrate only on golf as I am free from the burden of money. Strange as it may sound, donations freed me from the stress and all the burdens," said Kim with a smiling face. She added, "I might have given up golf before if I did not make donations on a regular basis. I've met many good people on the way of donations and many good things happened to my family since then."
She was recently chosen by her KLPGA colleagues as the No. l in physical strength and the No. 2 in the most potential player next year categories.
Kim visited a local orphanage with her fan club members recently to clean the facility and spend all day playing with the orphans before they donated 60 million won, 44 million won was 10 percent of Kim's prize money and 16 million won was collected by the fans' donations of 1,000 won for each buddy she made in the tour.
She promised in 2012 to donate all the prize money of her first KLPGA tournament win and it was about to happen many times. Kim joined the Honor Society, which is eligible for donations over 100 million won to a local charity organization, the first for a professional golfer.
There will be many more golfers whose charitable activities are not known, but for the above three lady golfers, I would not hesitate to call them "Santas on the Green."
Santas on the Green
By Yang Dong-hee
About 150 members of pro-golfer Chun In-jee's fan club gathered at a year-end party on Dec. 19, in Suwon city to bid a temporary farewell to their hero, who left for the United States for the LPGA tour last Sunday.
Upon recollecting the unbelievable accomplishments she made over the past year, Chun, 21 years old, turned emotional and shed tears in front of the fan club members who may come to the LPGA tournaments to follow her at every hole with victory signs, all wearing yellow "Flying Dumbo" hats. Dumbo is a famous Disney character, which became the nick name of Korea's No.1 female golfer.
"I was totally overwhelmed with the warm-hearts of so many fans and became emotional when I thought about not being able to see them any more on the U.S. greens." said Chun, this year's money winner in the KLPGA, who is with "Bright Future" management team.
The college sophomore made history by winning the major championship tournaments of the LPGA, JLPGA and KLPGA in one year. When she won the U.S. Open last July, it was not reported in the newspapers that she donated $10,000 to needy cancer patients at a local hospital.
During the recent farewell party, Chun's fans donated 20 million won and Chun matched that amount to give a total of 40 million won to the children of southeast Asian immigrant families.
When Chun won the Japan's World Ladies' Golf Championship last May as the youngest player ever to win the major tournament, she was acclaimed as "the beautiful golfer with dignity" by most Japanese media. Japanese golf fans were instantly captivated by the charms of the Korean golfer, who won another major championship the following October during her second visit to Japan.
One Japanese golf journal wrote; "Chun In-jee is stunningly beautiful, but her kokoro (heart) is even more beautiful." The article came out when she donated the Mercedes Benz she won along with the prize money earned from her first major tournament to the victims of the east Japan earthquake.
On the same day of Chun's party in the same city, some 200 golf fans, many of them from Japan, had a joyful time celebrating the most successful year in the JLPGA tour for Lee Bo-mi. She became the first female golfer ever in Japan whose prize money exceeded 200 million yen a year. Out of her 15 JLPGA wins, she won a record seven tournaments this year to be the 2015 money winner.
Lee, who is routinely called "Bomi-zzang", or "Smile Candy," is readily seen on the covers of many golf publications in newsstands and book stores. Asked about her popularity, a Japanese reporter working at Nikkan Sports replied, "Explosive. It's a syndrome."
She (Bo Mee Lee) also donated 10 million yen to the nuclear stricken children in the east Japan. She said, "Children stricken with the nuclear disaster cannot do anything. I'd like to give them a little, at the very least, just a little hope."
In an invitational golf tournament held in PyeongcCang, Lee Bo-mee's hometown in Gangwon-do, 110 Japanese golf fans flew in from Japan. There are 2,000 passionate fans in Japan for Lee Bo-mi, and what they like most about her is the success story of a poor mountainside girl, in addition to the innocent face and warm heart helping others.
Professional golfer Kim Hae-rym has yet to win a tournament in spite of her ninth year endeavors in the KLPGA tour. But her records in the KLPGA are steadily going up. In this year's 28 tournaments, she ended up in second and third place twice each, and within the top ten 12 times.
Kim acquired her full seed in the KLPGA in 2012 when her ranking was 28th with total prize money of little over 100 milllion won. It went up gradually to 25th, 17th and 9th this year.
Ever since 2007 when she turned pro, she (Hae Rym Kim) has kept her own promise to herself to donate 10 percent out of her prize money. In the first year in the KLPGA minor tour, she earned 6.8 million won, and she went to her Cheongwon-gun county office with 680,000 won to donate. That was the beginning of her beautiful story.
She has no manager and does everything by herself. Kim, now 26 years old, is suddenly very busy these days as her donations and charity activities as a ‘nameless' professional golfer for a long time came under the spotlight of the press.
As she passed the membership test of the KLPGA, her father gave up a small business he had managed in order to become her driver and manager. When asked why her father so confident about her success, Kim said, "My father just believed in me from the beginning." And during the very difficult early years, she did not stop or skip donations.
Her parents would encourage her donations, saying, "We are okay as long as we are not starving. Let's look around us at our more unfortunate neighbors," according to Kim.
"At first, it was a little difficult to understand, but now I can concentrate only on golf as I am free from the burden of money. Strange as it may sound, donations freed me from the stress and all the burdens," said Kim with a smiling face. She added, "I might have given up golf before if I did not make donations on a regular basis. I've met many good people on the way of donations and many good things happened to my family since then."
She was recently chosen by her KLPGA colleagues as the No. l in physical strength and the No. 2 in the most potential player next year categories.
Kim visited a local orphanage with her fan club members recently to clean the facility and spend all day playing with the orphans before they donated 60 million won, 44 million won was 10 percent of Kim's prize money and 16 million won was collected by the fans' donations of 1,000 won for each buddy she made in the tour.
She promised in 2012 to donate all the prize money of her first KLPGA tournament win and it was about to happen many times. Kim joined the Honor Society, which is eligible for donations over 100 million won to a local charity organization, the first for a professional golfer.
There will be many more golfers whose charitable activities are not known, but for the above three lady golfers, I would not hesitate to call them "Santas on the Green."
