Interview: HSBC Women's Champions Winner, Inbee Park

Interview: HSBC Women’s Champions Winner, Inbee Park

MF editorial team

06 Mar 2017

Champion of the annual HSBC Women’s Champions Inbee Park divulges her peaks and valleys.

Inbee Park makes history at the 10th edition of the HSBC Women’s Champions, becoming the first ever person to win the highly prestigious golf tournament in Singapore twice! The Olympic gold medalist had suffered a thumb injury last year, causing her to take a 6-month break, only resuming her play this year.

With 19 of the world’s top 20 competing, the quality of golf was simply world class. Fans visiting the Sentosa Golf Club on the final Sunday were in for a treat as the overnight leaderboard was packed with the biggest names in the sport including Lydia Ko, Ariya Jutanugarn, Michelle Wie, Ha Na Jang, Shanshan Feng and Inbee herself. And even under pressure, the South Korean wowed the crowd with a putting masterclass, showing the world that a little setback only spurs her on even more.

We had the fantastic opportunity to speak to the champion, Inbee, right after her marvelous victory. With insight into the difficulties of pursuing her dreams and her take on how to remain motivated, here’s an exclusive interview with Inbee Park.

MARIE FRANCE ASIA: Congratulations on your win! Does it still feel surreal to have won?

INBEE PARK: It feels like it’s been forever, and obviously, you know, I didn’t expect this win to come so quickly. So it feels very special and basically being able to do that in Singapore, it’s much more special.

MFA: What made you decide to do golf professionally?

I.P.: It’s my family sport, they all liked playing golf, it was just a very natural thing.

MFA: Competing must be very stressful, so how do you cope with that?

I.P.: Sometimes yes, sometimes it’s stressful, but you get a lot more things that are better to stress [about]. I think you just have to laugh a lot, I travel a lot with my husband so we try to do something other than golf together, and we facetime our dog, Rio, and it brings me a lot of laughter.

MFA: With all the travelling you do, what’s your favourite place to visit?

I.P.: Singapore is definitely one of them. I love the food and the people here, and the country is just so neat.

MFA: What is the hardest thing to overcome when pursuing your dream?

I.P.: I think it’s just the stress from the games, and obviously travelling is very, very hard. You’re living off your suitcases and travelling, flying all the time, missing your family. That’s the very hard thing about golf.

MFA: How do you remain motivated, especially with your injury last year?

I.P.: Just because I miss playing golf so much, but you know with the time that I was taking off, I’m just so happy that I’m back here and I definitely feel like this is where I belong.