Hlas: The world comes to Hunters Ridge

The American dream belongs to the world.

David and Michelle Song are Korean immigrants. When they were young, they moved to southern California. Their 18-year-old daughter, Christine, was born and raised there.

David built a company that imported eyeglasses. But when Christine qualified in November 2008 to play on the Duramed Futures golf tour, David sold his business. The family moved to Florida to be near his daughter's coach.

“I pushed her a lot of times to go to college,” David said. “She said no.”

“She told me if she made it onto the Futures Tour she would turn pro,” Michelle said, “and if not, she would go to college.”

Song was eighth on the Futures Tour money list last year and tied for third in the 2009 Ladies Titan Tire Challenge at Hunters Ridge.

Sunday, with her father as her caddie, she won the same tourney by five shots to earn $15,400 and vault to third on the tour's 2010 money list. The top five at the end of the year get considerable playing privileges on the LPGA Tour.

If you saw Song play this weekend, you know she's clearly on her way to the big tour.

Harvey and Zoe Ewart traveled from a town called Northallerton in the county of North Yorkshire in the north of England to Cedar Rapids last week. They wanted to be with their daughter during her professional debut.

Jodi Ewart is a 22-year-old who recently graduated from the University of New Mexico with a degree in psychology.

She also played golf at the school, and quite well. She began her quest to try to earn a spot on the LPGA Tour, the world's foremost women's golf tour, by playing here this weekend.

Ewart was the co-leader after the first and second rounds, and was tied with Song through nine holes in Sunday's final round, but Song was superb on the back nine, playing it in 4-under-par.

Ewart tailed off, going 4-over on the back nine, but still tied for fifth place and earned $3,132.

“We've never played golf in our lives,” said Harvey Ewart. “We train racehorses. Her granddad took her for lessons when she was 9, and she took it from there.”

But the parents are the ones who worked to pay for the lessons, equipment and travel.

Like to Dubai, where Ewart won a prestigious junior tourney when she was 17.

Harvey and Zoe flew to Iowa last Wednesday, and will fly home today. They never shouted when their daughter hit a fine shot, never drew an iota of attention to themselves. They were here just to be here, to be presences in the background for a young woman who was starting the next stage of her golf life.

Harvey wore a cap touting Route 66, which runs through Albuquerque where his daughter played scholarship golf. Zoe wore a white hat that simply said “England.”

Their daughter and Sunday's champion, the daughter of those Korean immigrants, were living the American dream in Cedar Rapids-Marion this weekend.

On a summer Sunday in a place where summer is too short, it's probably hard to get a lot of people to spend time watching golfers they don't know.

But Charity Tyler, tournament co-director, said attendance this year was “fantastic” and “We want to have a tournament next year, and we're really looking forward to hosting one next year at Hunters Ridge.”

Tyler said Titan Tire had expressed an interest in remaining the corporate sponsor.

Players from 20 different states and 15 foreign countries competed here Sunday, chasing that American dream. How could you not like that?