2023 could be the ‘year of fate’. Can Kim Si-woo (28, CJ Logistics), who made a good start by winning the first competition of the new year, write the best scenario of ‘Asian Games gold medal’?
Kim Si-woo won the US Professional Golf (PGA) Tour Sony Open (total prize money of $7.9 million), which ended on the 16th (Korean time), with a final total of 18 under par and 262 strokes.
Kim Si-woo, who has been playing on the PGA Tour since the 2015-16 season, enjoyed the excitement of winning his fourth personal career following the 2016 Wyndham Championship, the 2017 Players Championship, and the 2021 American Express.
It is also his first win since he married Oh Ji-hyeon (27, Daebang Construction) in December of last year and became a ‘married man’. His joy was even greater as he recorded his come-from-behind victory while his wife watched.
It also means that he has successfully put the first button of 2023 on. Siwoo Kim said before participating in the Sony Open, “I want to record two wins this year by getting good results in the beginning,” and he achieved half of his goal from the first tournament.
In particular, the year 2023 is very important to Kim Si-woo. This is because his military service is at stake.
A male golfer is like a mountain with a big military service problem in his career. This is because a hiatus of more than a year is not a small blow when he is in his prime.
Unlike other sports, golf, which is an individual sport, does not have an opportunity to gain practical experience during military service. This is why enlisting in the military is inevitably more burdensome.
There are similar cases before. Bae Sang-moon (37, Kiwoom Securities), a senior golfer, also joined the army in 2015 when he was on a winning streak with two wins on the PGA Tour. He returned to the PGA even after being discharged while receiving a suspended tour seed, but has not been able to show his old sense since.
Kim Si-woo still has a golden opportunity. The Hangzhou Asian Games will be held in September this year.
Kim Si-woo was included in the top two players in the world rankings at the end of April last year and qualified for the national team along with Lim Seong-jae (25, CJ Logistics).
Later, when the Hangzhou Games were postponed for a year due to the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), opinions such as re-selection of representatives were raised.
In this case, he could have been disqualified due to Kim Joo-hyung (21, Nike Golf), who won two victories last year, but the Korea Golf Association decided to keep the existing list as it is. For Kim Si-woo, this is a fortunate result.카지노사이트
If you win a gold medal at the Asian Games, you can get exemption from military service. Of course, participation in the tournament does not guarantee a gold medal, but from the standpoint of Kim Si-woo, who competes with world-class players on the PGA Tour, it can still be a highly probable fight.
In fact, Kim Si-woo did not achieve satisfactory results in the 2021-22 season. He competed in 29 competitions and had only one ‘Top 10’, and even that was recorded at the Sanderson Farms Championship held in 2021 (tied for 8th place). In 2022, he rarely had an impressive game.
However, in 2023 after his marriage, he is showing a different performance. As shown at the Sony Open, the short game revived and showed stable performance, and on the final day, it showed the potential to overturn a 3-stroke gap.
If they keep up their game like this, they can expect the best results in the Asian Games.
His wife Oh Ji-hyun also decided to focus on Kim Si-woo’s housekeeping for the time being. I have already given up participating in the Korean Women’s Professional Golf (KLPGA) Tour this year and suspended the KLPGA seed rights I received by winning the Jeju Samdasoo Masters in 2021.
If Kim Si-woo fails to achieve the desired results in this year’s Asian Games, the scenario becomes complicated. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, they have to aim for a bronze medal or better, but the competition is much fiercer because top rankers from all over the world are mobilizing.
In particular, only the top two players in the world rankings per country can participate in the Olympics. Kim Si-woo, ranked 41st in the world rankings, is currently the fourth Korean player after Kim Joo-hyung (14th), Lim Seong-jae (19th), and Lee Gyeong-hun (36th), and is currently unable to participate in the Olympics.
However, since the right to participate in the Olympics is based on the world rankings in June next year, there is still time left. With this victory, Kim Si-woo jumped up 43 steps in the world rankings at once and narrowed the gap.