Congratulations to Inbee Park and Yumiko Yoshida!

I got to see Inbee Park flush her playoff birdie putt to win the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship on Golf Channel for her 2nd consecutive playoff win (this time over So Yeon Ryu), 5th of the season, and 8th of her career, despite being on the road at Saratoga Springs (Th-F), Fort Lee (F-Sa), NYC (Sa), Norwalk (Sa-Su), and Clinton (Su) over the past few days before returning home to Hamburg about 11 hours ago, but I didn't see much else.  And I didn't follow Yumiko Yoshida's win at the Nichirei Ladies at all--her 1st on the JLPGA.

But there is a lesson in Park's career trajectory for Yoshida.  If you're a regular reader here, you'll know that Park played quite a bit on the JLPGA for a couple of seasons.  In her 1st year, she played the bridesmaid a million times before figuring out how to win there and doing it repeatedly in her 2nd season.  Well, the same pattern has repeated itself for her the last 2 seasons on the LPGA:  last year she won a bunch of silvers, and this year she's on pace to rival the record for most golds in a single season, has a chance to complete an Inbee Slam, and is the undisputed #1 female golfer on the planet.  So even though Yoshida's 1st win comes mid-career, she can take a page from Park's book and use it as a springboard for bigger and better things!

[Correction (6/25/13):  Park won the last event of 2010 and the 1st of 2011, but didn't win in bunches after that (in fact, the rest of 2011 was a little disappointing and she went back to her bridesmaid ways in 2012).  For the correct details, see today's post!  So my larger point stands if you squint really really hard....]