ROGERS, Ark. - Inbee Park had a major championship to her credit at the time she decided the swing she had wasn’t good enough. She met a new coach and together they agreed it was time for a major swing change. What’s followed has been a beautiful marriage – both with her swing and her swing coach.

Park first decided to make the major change in 2011. Since she’s become the No. 1 player in the world, reeled off 14 victories in the last four years and she got married last fall to her swing coach, Gi Hyeob Nam.

Really it’s all a credit to the ball striking. Park’s long been one of the premier putters on the planet but her ball striking has improved “300 percent” she says since she decided to make the switch. What perhaps might be the most terrifying for her opponents, though, is at the time they installed the swing changes, Nam told Park that it would take up to three or four years before the new swing fully took hold.

Now Park’s competitors are seeing that come to fruition. Even in a year 2013 where Stacy Lewis watched Park win six times, including three consecutive major championships, she never saw her hit the ball like this.

“Inbee’s always been playing well but what she’s been doing better I think over probably the last six months or so is her ball striking,” Lewis said. “You look the last year or two, she rode her putter a lot, she would make everything she looked at and ball striking wasn’t that great. But now the ball striking is catching up with the putting. That’s what you saw especially at Westchester, she hit it really good there. Didn’t put herself in any bad situations so she’s not really doing a whole lot wrong right now.”

Coming off a five-shot win in which Park’s 19-under-par tied a major championship record, it’s hard to argue. Park certainly won’t. She’s the first to admit that she’s never hit it as well as she is this year.

Considering in 2013 Park reeled off back-to-back-to-back wins at the KPMG Women’s PGA, here in Arkansas and last at the U.S. Women’s Open, that’s incredible.

“The ball striking has improved a lot this year,” Park said. “I think it’s – I had a big swing change in 2011 and since then it was getting better and better every year. I think it just came to the point where it feels really like my swing and it’s getting really comfortable in my body and I feel comfortable swinging like that.”

If that’s the case, 2013 could have only served as a glimpse of the domination she can achieve. She even feels more comfortable in the unprecedented category she’s reached. This is her third time taking over the world’s No. 1 ranking, but she never embraced the role quite like now, even though she owned the spot for 59 consecutive weeks through portions of 2013 and 2014.

“I believe this is my third time going to No. 1, including this time. But in the first time I thought it was just, you know, I felt just a bit weird and it didn’t feel like my place. Second time it felt a little more comfortable, but I felt like my game wasn’t quite ready yet,” Park said. “But now the third time it feels like I’m really ready for this spot and my game is getting better and better every day and I feel like I am playing like a No. 1.”

In other words, fans can expect to see her there for a while.

Inbee Park Getting Comfortable with Swing Change

Related Articles