Tag: Grace Park

Jane Park returning to LPGA action for first time since daughter’s life-changing incident

Players will also wear ribbons throughout the week to show their support for Jane and Grace.

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Jane Park is set to play in her first LPGA event in two years next week when she returns to action at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational in Midland, Michigan, at Midland Country Club.

Park hasn’t played since the 2021 Volunteers of America. While Park was playing, her then-10-month-old daughter Grace experienced a series of undiagnosed seizures and subsequently suffered severe brain damage, now requiring full-time care.

Park’s husband, professional caddie Pete Godfrey, will caddie for Park. Grace also will be in attendance. Park will team up with Paula Creamer.

“It’s my honor and privilege to compete in the 2023 Dow Great Lakes Bay Championship partnered with my great friend Paula Creamer,” Park said in a release. “With the help of family, friends and so many others, I’ll be able to see my LPGA family again inside the ropes one more time. I’m incredibly nervous just like I used to be when I competed full time, but I know my partner will pick up my slack. My husband Pete will be on my bag, so hopefully he will give me some good clubs. The cherry on top is that Grace will be there to say hello to her friends. I can’t wait for everyone to see her again and we are looking forward to making new memories with everyone.”

Last December, Anne van Dam raced a half ironman to raise money for Grace. The week after the incident, LPGA players rallied behind Park and Grace.

Special hats will be available to purchase at the Great Lakes Bay Invitational with proceeds donated to the Epilepsy Foundation and the Golf4Her Foundation. Players will also wear ribbons throughout the week to show their support.

“We are proud to be able to host Jane, Pete and Grace at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational next week,” Dow GLBI Executive Director Carlos Padilla II said in a release. “We hope to be able to showcase the incredible hospitality of the Great Lakes Bay Region to their family, while also helping bring awareness to epilepsy. Fans should plan to come out and support Jane and Paula on the course.”

An elite Florida women’s amateur event to be held this week has spawned stars like Cristie Kerr, Grace Park, Lexi Thompson, Nelly Korda and Brooke Henderson

The 97th-anniversary edition of the tournament tees off this week — a field of golfers that grows younger and deeper by the year.

ORMOND BEACH, Florida — The 97th-anniversary edition of the Sally Championship tees off this week in its modern form — a field of golfers that seems to grow younger and deeper by the year.

The Championship Division features 85 golfers from top college programs and plenty of even younger talent from the top rungs of the national junior rankings, all here to face the unique challenges presented by Oceanside Country Club, where the fickle beachside elements always play a role.

Following Tuesday’s annual Member-Sally event, the 72-hole, stroke-play tournament — formally known as the Women’s South Atlantic Amateur Championship — runs Wednesday through Saturday.

Leading the way is defending champion Emma McMyler, a junior at Xavier University, who won by a stroke last year with a total of 1-under 287. She tees off at 10:02 Wednesday morning to start her title defense.

Ellen Hume
Ellen Hume won the Sally Amateur to start 2021. (Daytona Beach News-Journal)

Emma McMyler won last year’s Sally Championship by one shot.
A few other golfers from last year’s top-10 finishers return this year, including the nation’s top-ranked junior, Ohio’s Gianna Clemente. She made history last summer as a 14-year-old, earning three straight LPGA Tour starts through Monday qualifiers.

The second-ranked player on the current junior rankings, Kaitlyn Schroeder of Jacksonville, also returns this year after tying for fourth with Clemente, at 2 over par, in last year’s Sally. Schroeder, who enrolls this month at the University of Alabama, was the 2022 American Junior Golf Association’s Player of the Year.

This week’s field also includes a handful of high school golfers from the nearby Daytona Beach area: Amelia Cobb (Seabreeze), Riley Fletcher (Seabreeze), Vanessa Perry (Spruce Creek) and Alexandra Gazzoli (Matanzas).

The Sally’s history is tied to a wintertime group of amateur tournaments in Florida dubbed the Orange Blossom Circuit. Its list of past champions includes a pair of Hall of Famers — Patty Berg (1938-39) and Babe Zaharias (1947) — as well as some modern LPGA Tour stars such as Cristie Kerr, Grace Park, Lexi Thompson, Jessica Korda and Brooke Henderson.

Nelly Korda, the younger sister of LPGA player Jessica Korda during the first round of the 86th South Atlantic Amateur at Oceanside Country Club.

From the 1920s to the 2020s, an oncoming Sally sends golfers to the oncoming forecast. This week’s daily offerings from Wednesday through Saturday, at least so far, include a temp range from low 80s to low 50s, predominant winds from three different directions, and a decent chance of thunderstorms during Thursday’s second round.

Tee times run from 7:30 a.m. to about noon each day.

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LPGA rallies to support Jane Park, whose daughter Grace remains in critical condition

Last Friday, Jane Park’s 10-month old daughter Grace was hospitalized with seizures and brain swelling.

Last Friday, Jane Park’s 10-month old daughter Grace was hospitalized with seizures and brain swelling during the Volunteers of America Classic in Dallas, where she remains in critical condition.

Good friend Tiffany Joh organized a GoFundMe account to help raise support. An LPGA.com post noted that doctors believe Grace’s seizures are caused by a virus or autoimmune issue and expect her to be hospitalized for at least three weeks.

On Wednesday, dozens of players, caddies and officials gathered on the 18th green at the Marathon Classic in Toledo to pray for Grace. The LPGA blew the horn at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. so that those who were on the course could stop and think of the family as well. Park’s husband, Pete Godfrey, regularly caddies for Ariya Jutanugarn. The couple met on tour.

Park, 34, started a blog on Wednesday to help keep her supporters around the globe informed. The 2004 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion joined the LPGA in 2007.

“I never thought I would be able to correctly identify the beeping of monitors and machines in a cold hospital room,” Park wrote in her opening blog post. “After all, the first time I was ever admitted into a hospital was when I was giving birth to my little one.”

Joh, a former teammate of Park’s at UCLA, is known for her music videos on tour. On Thursday, she attached a video to the GoFundMe account with a beautiful rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Earlier this week, Joh told womensgolf.com that this week’s Marathon Classic would be her final event on tour.

“I always call us a traveling circus,” said Emma Talley, who helped organize the tour-wide prayer session, “and we’re also a traveling family. We’re all together every single week and we go from place to place. So just shows we were a family, and when people are in need we can help.”