With her nickname “Dak gong” or ‘Silent Assassin’, Sung Hyun Park can be a little intimidating when she is competing. She is known to show very little to no emotion during tournament play and many people have said that her tough exterior makes it tricky to know what she’s like off the course.
Most of us just peer in from the outside, following her on Instagram where she posts about her travels, her dining spoils and her puppy. Fans want to know everything they can about the 2017 breakout star in hopes of attaining a pass into her social circle, which isn’t easy when you have to squeeze past her 10,000-member Namdalla fan club.
For fans outside Korea, the language barrier doesn’t help either. Park said that she’s been using the app Duolingo to expand her English vocabulary but she feels that she’s not improving at all, and she doesn’t have much time to practice her language skills. We certainly can’t blame her since she’s got bigger things on her mind this season.
However, we do know at least 2 things about her: she’s great at golf and she loves her two dogs, Daon and Ato. For Park, this special bond goes well beyond a girl and her best friend.
“The weirdest thing is, every time I get a dog, I win.”
Park was on a 6-win hot streak in her final year on the Korean LPGA Tour but then hit a slump. She knew she had to reverse that trend soon if she wanted to make it to the LPGA Tour. Finding it difficult to finish the season with a bang, she came home with a Labrador, Daon.” She had always wanted to raise a dog and thought that the perfect time had come for her to get one. She was proved right when just two weeks later, she secured her seventh and final win for 2016, and earned her LPGA Tour membership for the 2017 season.
Amazingly, lightning then struck again in a very similar way. Four months into the 2017 season, with 13 LPGA Tour starts under her belt, Park came home with Ato, a Rottweiler puppy. Two weeks later, she won her first major championship title at the U.S. Women’s Open, and became the fastest player to reach $1 million in career earnings. Was that just a coincidence?
“I still think about that tournament a lot,” said Park. “I have a lot of good memories.” But when she was asked if she planned to come home with another pet anytime in the near future, she replied, “My mom would kill me.”
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