How a star is born

Park In-bee was 10 when she rose from her bed in the middle of the night in Seoul to watch her South Korean compatriot Pak Se-ri win the 1998 US Women's Open on television.

Three years later, Park, her sister, In-ah, and their mother, Sung, packed up and moved to the United States while their father, Gun-gyu, stayed home to run his business. The Parks settled in Mount Dora, a suburb north of Orlando, Florida, with fewer than 13,000 residents, where the girls went to school and learned English.

In-bee had just turned 13 and was budding as a golfer in 2001. In-ah was starting to play at 11. They were enrolled in a golf academy for South Koreans run by Charlie Yoo at Black Bear Golf Club in nearby Eustis. In-bee progressed quickly.

"When she won the 2002 US Girls' Junior championship and came back home to Mount Dora, I had her autograph some golf balls for me," said David Reed, whose wife, Jeannie, was Park's English teacher and golf coach at Christian Home and Bible School, a private school with 550 students.

"I said, 'In-bee, you know this is just the beginning, don't you'?" he said. "She just smiled."

After 21/2 years in Mount Dora, the Park family moved to Las Vegas, where In-bee began fine-tuning her game at the Butch Harmon School of Golf. She turned professional at 17, posting 11 top-10 finishes on the 2006 Futures Tour (now the Symetra Tour).