“I was so nervous that my legs were shaking, but I am really happy that I achieved my goal of winning this year.”
The last day of the Korea Professional Golf (KPGA) Korean Tour Opening Day. Park Sang-hyeon (40), Seo Yo-seop (27), and an unknown Gogun-taek (24) faced each other in the championship group. A blood-drying battle continued for over two hours, and in the end, the rookie Go Gun-taek rose to the top of the leaderboard.
On the 16th, in the final 4th round of the DB Damage Insurance Promy Open (total prize money of 700 million won), the KPGA Korean Tour 2023 season opened at the Old Course (par 72) of Chuncheon City, Gangwon-do, there was a close match. Go Gun-taek, who scored 7 under par 65 strokes with 8 birdies and 1 bogey, reached the top with a final total of 20 under par 268 strokes. Go Gun-taek, with his spirit, overpowered the seasoned Park Sang-hyun and the powerful Seo Yo-seop, and won the thrilling first championship.
Ko Gun-taek, a native of Seogwipo-si, Jeju, was a promising player who served as the national team in 2016 and the national standing army in 2017. He tied for ninth in the 2019 Korean Tour Qualifying Tournament, debuted on the Korean Tour in 2020, and celebrated his fourth year this year. In 2021, he set a Korea course record at Jack Nicklaus Golf Club, a prestigious golf course, by driving 10 under par 62 strokes in the first round of the Genesis Championship, a’special competition’. He led alone until the 3rd round and raised expectations for his first win in his life. On the last day, he swallowed regret by finishing in 3rd place due to a difficult shot.
Ko Gun-taek reached the top of the Korean Tour for the first time in 49 tournaments, clearing away the regrets of the time. For this season, I conducted field training in Las Vegas for a month in February, and focused on adding shot accuracy and fade pitches. It was thanks to the mental strengthening training that he was able to play his own game without being too nervous even in the competition for the championship on the last day.
“Adaptation is over. Go Gun-taek’s goal of “I will definitely win this year” was achieved from the first tournament of the 2023 season. Go Gun-taek started the final round in second place by a single stroke, but the spotlight was on Park Sang-hyun and Seo Yo-seop, who played in the same group. Ko Gun-taek quietly pursued them by cutting 3 strokes until the 10th hole in the first half. 메이저사이트
The match was delayed for about an hour due to lightning and heavy rain that suddenly hit the venue at 2:00 pm, but after the restart, the game was even hotter. Even with 5 holes left in the second half, the match was so close that Go Gun-taek, Park Sang-hyeon, and Seo Yo-seop tied for the lead, and Ko Gun-taek showed off his sense of a burning game by catching three consecutive birdies from the 13th to the 15th hole.
Go Gun-taek, who made a birdie with his second shot on the 14th hole (par 4) at a distance of 1.5m from the pin, tied for the lead with Park Sang-hyun, and added another birdie on the 15th hole (par 5) to rise to the sole lead. In the 16th hole (par 4), Seo Yo-seop recorded a tee shot out of bounds (OB) and was pushed out of the championship competition, but Park Sang-hyun caught a 2.5m birdie, making the game impossible to predict.
Ko Gun-taek pinned a tee shot on the 17th hole (par 3), sent it 3m away, and did not miss the birdie putt, leading again by one stroke. Co-leader Park Sang-hyun failed to put his tee shot on the green and made a bogey at this hole, so Go Gun-taek’s birdie became the ‘wedge birdie’ that decided the championship.
He faced a crisis in which his tee shot rolled to the left on the last 18th hole (par 4), but he sent his second shot to the green fringe. Then, he made a sensuous chip shot and succeeded in saving a par to confirm the championship.
Meanwhile, Park Sang-hyun, who aimed to defend the title in the opening game, had to be satisfied with a runner-up (18 under par, 270 strokes) even after reducing 6 strokes.