Son of the Wind tames Tiger

Last Saturday morning, several members of the Sportswriters Association of Cebu (SAC) went to the Kamagong Gun Club and had 50 rounds each to shoot targets. It was a really fun day. Some guys had really tight groups on their targets and looked quite familiar with the guns. My grouping was so wide it looks like a lay-out for a slalom event.

It was my first time to shoot a semi-auto pistol and the excitement made my hands a bit shaky. We were supposed to aim and shoot at the upper part of the target but my hits were way below. In reality, if the target was a man, the head shot translated to a “circumcision” shot. It won’t kill but still would be fatal in another kind of way.

To the management of Kamagong GC, Councilor Jack Jakosalem, SAC prez John Pages, Karlon Rama, Nimrod Q, shooting grandmaster Rey Abad and Armscor’s Joel Conception, thank you for making SAC’s day last Saturday. And to the SAC guys, lets have another BANG! BANG!

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Sports headlines last Tuesday screamed of Y.E. Yang becoming the first Asian to win a major golf championship by upsetting Tiger Woods at the PGA. The world’s number one dropped one to a player ranked number 110 in the world.

We all know who Tiger Woods is, so let’s get to know a little about the new PGA champion. Yang Yong-eun is a son of vegetable farmers, the fourth of eight children, from the resort island of Jeju, South Korea. As a child, he played basketball, football, volleyball and baseball. It was not until he was 19 years old that he tried golf while working at a country club.

Before taking up golf, he dreamed of becoming a bodybuilder and have his own gym. A knee injury led him to the job at the golf resort. Lacking the money for green fees and lessons, he picked up balls at the club for a minimal monthly salary in exchange for using the greens during off-hours.

He arrives everyday at the club at 5am before it opens to the public and have the greens all to himself. He hits the greens once again after closing time, providing his own lights when it gets dark. A few years later, Yang left golf for compulsory military service. After his stint with the military, he went to New Zealand and played golf intensively for three months. He turned pro in 1996, five years after he first picked up a golf club.

Yang Han-joon, his father, begged him not to pursue golf as it is for rich people. He pressured Yang to join him in the fields and help in their vegetable farm but he was determined not to live like his father.

For his consistency even on windy days, Yang is known across South Korea as “Son of the Wind” but the Korea Professional Golfers’ Association is considering a new alias for Yang - “Tiger Killer”.

The 37-year old Yang is married, with three sons and has earned more than $3 million on the tour, including the $1.35 million for the PGA Championship.

E-mail me at [email protected]   (THE FREEMAN)