The comparisons were inevitable. Tiger Woods had stalked the fairways in his rookie year with a confidence in-built by a domineering father and an education, of sorts, on the American collegiate circuit, the perfect grooming ground. This past season witnessed an even more remarkable story, but by a woman golfer, and someone who bucked the system into the bargain.
In 1998, "The Terminator" arrived.
Se Ri Pak, a 20-year-old Korean with broken English, took the process a stage further this year when, in her rookie season, she won two majors - the US LPGA championship and the US Open - and, unsurprisingly, took the rookie of the year award on the US Women's Tour.
The week after she won the US Open at Blackwolf Run, she went out and shot the lowest round (61) in the history of the LPGA Tour in winning the Jamie Farr Classic by nine strokes. Her growing army of fans unfurled a banner by the 18th green which read, "Tiger Out; Pak In".
But the cracks eventually appeared in Pak's armoury, and the woman tagged The Terminator for her robotic instincts inside the ropes was shown to be very human.
Two weeks after winning the Farr, Pak won again, her third success in four tournaments, but that win, in July, was her last of the season. On a triumphant return to her home in South Korea late in the year, she was hospitalised for three days due to exhaustion; and, earlier this month, Pak split with her coach of almost two years, David Leadbetter.
Last week Pak joined the International Management Group (IMG), which also looks after Woods and the world's number one woman golfer, Annika Sorenstam.
Pak's introduction to the game was uncannily similar to Tiger Woods's. Just like Tiger's dad, Earl, handed the young cub a club as soon as he could walk, Pak's father - the president of a construction company and a plus handicapper in is own right - gave his daughter a club at an early age. Nevertheless, she didn't play the game seriously until she was 14.
"I was into track and field and could run the 100 metres in 13 seconds. But my father thought that golf would have more opportunities," she explained.
And so it was that he would wake her at 5.30 a.m. and get her to run up and down the 15 flights of their apartment building in Daejon, a city 100 miles south of Seoul. He would also get her to hit bunker shots at the beach, and the ethic of dawn to dusk practice was born.
Recently, her father explained: "I wanted her to do the stairs thing to develop courage and nerve. I wanted to teach her that to win in golf, she first had to win the battle within herself. Once, I told her to run down the stairs backwards, not realising how difficult that was. I tried it myself and I could only go down five floors. But Se Ri endured my training without any complaints."
In her first competitive round as a 14-year-old, she shot 82 and, while still in secondary school, Pak played in the 1995 US Women's Amateur Championship before losing to Kelli Kuehne in the semi-finals. In the autumn of 1997, a year before Se Ri Pak made her name worldwide, Kuehne played with Pak in a tournament in Korea and remarked: "There were people everywhere following us. The only other person I have ever seen who received the same kind of reaction was Tiger Woods."
Since her major wins in the US, that acclaim has intensified even further.
Pak's arrival in the United States derived from big-money sponsorship. Samsung, the Korean electronics giant, signed Se Ri to a long-term sponsorship deal that included a million-dollar signing bonus. They also put up the money to send her to be coached by Leadbetter in Orlando, Florida. How much the deal is actually worth remains a carefully guarded secret, the Korean principle of jung ensuring mouths remain closed. But the manufacturing giant was instrumental in mapping out Pak's move to the States.
"I got a call from some people at Samsung about this girl who had won a lot of tournaments on the amateur scene and had performed well in the pro events in Korea," Leadbetter recalled.
"They said, `It's her goal to come to America and work with you and get on the LPGA Tour. Would you be interested?' Just her coming over to meet me really impressed me. Her dynamics were good . . . she has the physical attributes where she hits the ball like a man."
That relationship has since waned. Prior to the LPGA Championship in Las Vegas, Pak hit some balls for Butch Harmon and played nine holes with Tiger Woods, and rumours of a split with Leadbetter surfaced for the first time. But the break didn't come until earlier this month, long after Pak had left her mark on the 1998 season, and prompted Leadbetter to worry about the direction she was headed.
Leadbetter remarked: "She's got so many people involved - a manager, Samsung has another set of managers, family, friends, an uncle, a father who doesn't speak English." And he went on to wonder about the routine in which Pak found herself wrapped up. "It doesn't matter how good a horse is, you can't race it every week," he added.
Her relationship with Samsung isn't as cosy as it was either. Although they remain Pak's sponsors, IMG (since last week) have become her personal managers with the aim of negotiating "additional endorsement deals". Indeed, LPGA officials were amazed at one stage during Pak's stay in hospital when a number of Samsung executives visited her and asked if she would be able to keep her commitment to play in an arranged corporate exhibition day. IMG had given her "investment counselling" since her US Open win, and it was perhaps inevitable that they would take over her personal management fulltime.
Pak's hospitalisation with exhaustion late in the year may cause her minders to restrict the competitive schedule for next season, but she made a remarkable impact on the LPGA Tour in her first year as a professional. Prior to her win in the McDonald's LPGA Championship in May, her previous best tournament finish had been 11th in the Longs Drugs tournament.
The LGPA kick-started an incredible summer. She won the US Open - when she beat the amateur Jenny Chauiriporn in an 18hole play-off - and followed up with victories in the Jamie Farr and the Great Eagle Classic. Three wins in four weeks in July. She didn't win again, but Pak finished the year with $860,170 in prize money on the US LPGA Tour and the promise of more to come.
"I want to be the best player in the world. I want to be like Nancy Lopez. Not only does she play well, she always has a smile on her face," said Pak.
The media pressure in Korea is immense, however. Recently, one newspaper compared her to an amalgam of Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Mark McGwire. She responded: "I don't want to be compared to Tiger or Jordan. I want people to be compared to me." But she has left herself a hard act to follow in 1999, although Lopez, for one, believes in Pak. "When you are that young and everything is so new, you don't fear failure."
Pak, for her part, believes the move from Leadbetter and the diluting of her reliance on Samsung is a sign of maturity. "I learned to take care of myself," she said. "Early in the year, everything was so new to me that I needed some help."
So, it would appear that Pak could finally be taking the advice of her former coach Leadbetter and recognising that a horse can't race every week.
