GOYANG-SI, South Korea — Retired two-time major champion So Yeon Ryu spent last week working as a consultant for Hanwha during the fifth edition of the International Crown. This week, she’s in the TV booth announcing at the LPGA’s Maybank Championship – in English – for the international feed.
It’s remarkable given that as a rookie on the LPGA in 2012, the South Korean often hoped someone would make a putt to clip her early week during tournaments so that she wouldn’t be asked to do a post-round interview.
Ryu, 35, retired in 2024 with six LPGA titles, including two majors at the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open and 2017 ANA Inspiration, and, along the way, became one of the best interviews on tour.
Now, she’s trying to figure out what she wants to do next. She has dabbled in TV and helped the Korea Golf Association improve its national program. She’s passionate about golf course architecture. When something interesting comes along, she’s quick to say “yes” but isn’t in a hurry to commit to a full-time job.
In December, she’ll marry the love of her life.
Golfweek caught up with the former No. 1 at New Korea Country Club to talk about the importance of the International Crown, an event she helped South Korea win on home soil in 2018 along with Sung Hyun Park, In-Kyung Kim and In Gee Chun. What follows are excerpts from that conversation:
To be honest, I don’t think I ever really enjoyed the competition. I guess my motivation is more how to progress and how to improve myself. So competition always gave me a lot of stress. After I retire, I feel more peaceful, I would say.
But at the same time, you know, when I was golfer, even though I played bad, I still knew what I needed to do –more training, go on the golf course, putting a little bit, you know, chipping. But right now, to be honest, I feel like I don’t know what to do. So that’s the thing I’m trying to figure it out. … I don’t want to commit to one thing. I think this is my time to explore a lot of things.
I got engaged in April this year. He’s actually Korean-American. He grew up in the States all the way until when he was 25, I want to say. And then he moved to Korea in 2012. So he’s sort of like, when I went to the U.S., he was in Korea. And now he has been living Korea for like 10 years, and then we did a blind date and kind of clicked.
I always really loved this tournament, and I was lucky enough to play this tournament three in a row. And especially for my first event, I teamed up with Inbee, Na Yeon Choi and I.K. And, you know, like, even though we were friends, we don’t really share how to play golf better, how to play better because we were all competitors. But this was a time we were really able to open up the heart, and that we were able to share a lot of things. And then, I truly believe that was the time we became true friends. … If somebody’s gonna ask me, what’s the top three tournaments that you ever played, I’m definitely gonna pick my winning in 2018 International Crown.
During COVID, I was so disappointed that this tournament kind of lost momentum. But compared to Solheim, this tournament doesn’t really have much history. So to build a history, we really need to continue to support this tournament. And then I truly believe one day this tournament could be, you know, like Solheim or like Ryder Cup. But right now, I think we really need to have a lot of player support and fan support, of course, the sponsors support as well.
I just love game so much. Also, I think I just loved being on the golf course. You know, to be honest, right after I retired, the first thing I really wanted to do is golf architecture. That’s still, that’s my biggest passion. But as you know, it’s really, it’s a rare opportunity to design to a golf course. So right now I’m still, whenever I have a chance to learn about it, I just go for it, and I just look around. And my good friend, Michael Clayton, he also gave me a lot of great advice. So these days when I’m playing golf, I’m seeing about the golf architecture more than my golf.
I had an all-Aussie staff around me. My caddie was Australian, my physio was Australian, my coach was Australian. So I was surrounded by non-Koreans all the time. I didn’t watch Korean TV for like literally two years. And then when I studied English, I watched “Friends,” “Modern Family” and “Sex and the City.” So when I watched that one first time, I just watched it with the Korean subtitles for like a couple of times, and then I switched it to like English subtitles a couple of times. And then when I get to understand a little bit, I just watch it without subtitles, and I’m just trying to understand. And I guess I just memorized the lines. Then, whenever I needed to speak in English, I just switched the words.
They say compared to my generation, like newer generation is not really dominating on tour. So a lot of Koreans actually ask me, “So Yeon, why do you think the newer generation of Koreans is not good as you guy’s generation?” And then I thought about it all the time, and then one thing I can think of right now, like my generation always had a coach in the States. And these girls prefer to have a coach in Korea. So whenever they have to fix the swing, they always need to come back to Korea or just get in touch with a screen. And it’s a different thing than seeing in person, like coach also need to see how the ball is flying. The coach also needs to match up the swing with how the ball goes. But Koreans are not able to do that because their coaches are in Korea and players are in the States. So I almost feel like just Korean players started to wait a little bit too long to see the coach. We’re good enough to put the Band-Aid. But if you keep putting the Band-Aid, I think someday you’re gonna be going so far down, and it’s just really hard to go up again.
At the same time, like, if they’re working with an American coach or Australian coach, whoever coach that’s able speak English, they’re able to get a chance to speak English even more, and then eventually they are going to be more comfortable speaking English. So yeah, hopefully one day all Korean girls are going to have more confidence speaking English, and then showing their good personality to the whole world instead of just in Korean.
Read the full article here
