Inbee Park eyes ‘Super Career Grand Slam’ while Michelle Wie wins style points at Evian

With Serena Williams going for the tennis single season Grand Slam this week at the US Open, Inbee Park’s efforts to soar to a career slam in the final women’s golf major of the season may fly well under the radar.

Park may not spark the same passion among fans and the media for her quest as Williams ignites just by stepping on the court, but completing what the LPGA touts as the “Super Career Grand Slam” would be no less impressive.

The 27-year-old South Korean won the Evian, which starts Thursday in the French Alps, in 2012, the year before the tour tapped it as the fifth and last major of the season. In July, she became the seventh woman to win four different majors when she captured the Women’s British Open, generating all manner of confusion and linguistic contortions about whether she had compiled the career slam.

Should Park add the Evian Championship to her remarkable resume, she would join Karrie Webb as the only players to win every available major championship in women’s golf in their careers. Webb’s five different major wins came at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, Women’s PGA Championship, du Maurier Classic, U.S. Women’s Open, and the Women’s British Open, and she would have the tour’s wordsmiths working overtime if she were to lift the Evian trophy come Sunday.

Park, who has won six of the last 14 major tournaments starting with the 2013 Kraft Nabisco and owns seven major titles, really doesn’t care what anyone calls it.

“If the LPGA says that it’s a Super Career Grand Slam, it’s a Super Career Grand Slam. I don’t really get the choice. They are the ones who write the record books, it’s not me,” she told reporters on Wednesday. “I still have the five trophies … It’s still not going to change that I’m an Evian champion. It wasn’t just a major, but it always felt like a major.”

No matter the outcome at the Evian, Park has already clinched the 2015 Rolex Annika Major Award that goes to the player who has won at least one of the season’s majors and attains the most points in all of them. Michelle Wie took the inaugural Annika honors in 2014.

Speaking of the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champ, Wie has been battling injuries and illnesses all year but she enters the week sporting flashy new Nike shoes and a French-braided hairdo that represents all the colors of the rainbow.

Nike designed the new high-top Blazer to help support Wie’s ankle, which she injured earlier in the season.

“She wanted to feel more support throughout her swing and greater connection to the ground,” Nike Golf footwear designer Joël Greenspan said in a statement. “She also wanted a shoe that would reflect her distinct sense of style on and off the course.”

The Blazer design — which George “The Iceman” Gervin debuted in the NBA in 1972 — is one of Wie’s favorite styles. The shoe, with spikeless traction on the bottom, a camo swoosh, and numbers printed on the tongue tag that memorialize her scores from her U.S. Open win (68, 68, 72, 70) will be available next year.

Park was scheduled to kick off her Super Slam chase on the 10th tee at 8:40 a.m. local time alongside second-ranked Lydia Ko and Stacy Lewis, No. 3 in the world. Wie, Cristie Kerr, and Anna Nordqvist were slated to follow the marquee group at 8:51 a.m.