Will Korean golf be able to achieve a ‘gold medal putt’ at the Asian Games for the first time in 9 years? The 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games men’s and women’s golf individual and team competitions will be held for four days starting on the 28th at the West Lake International Golf Course in Hangzhou, China (par 72, men’s 7,307 yards, women’s 6,850 yards). Korean players arrived in Hangzhou on the 25th and played two practice rounds on the 26th and 27th to understand the course and adjust their shot feel. The men’s division, led by the world’s 27th-ranked Seong-jae Lim and 40th-ranked Si-woo Kim (CJ), who play in the PGA of America, is expected to dominate the individual and team competitions. Professionals can participate in Asian Games golf starting this year, and there is no rival in terms of objective power. Looking at the world rankings, Anirban Lahiri in 148th place and Shubhankar Sharma (India) in 160th place stand out, but the gap is large.토토사이트
Amateurs Wooyoung Cho (Woori Financial Group) and Yubin Jang (Korea National Sport University), who both won once in this year’s Korea Professional Golf (KPGA) Korean Tour, join hands with their seniors. This is why a team competition that combines the scores of the top three players is expected.
In the case of the women’s division with 3 participants, we tried to form a representative with 1 professional and 2 amateurs, but the professionals refused to participate, so the amateurs Lim Ji-yu (Suseong Bang Service 3rd grade), Yoo Hyeon-jo (Cheonan Jungang Service 3rd grade), and Kim Min-sol (Suseong Bang Service 2nd grade) came forward. Her trio of high school girls also showed off their competitiveness several times in professional competitions, such as Minsol Kim entering the top 10 at the BMW Championship on the American Women’s Professional Golf (LPGA) Tour held in Korea last year and tying for fourth place at the Korea Women’s Open in June this year.
China’s side is spectacular in the women’s division. World No. 2 Yin Luoning, No. 13 Lin Siyu, and Liu Yu, runner-up at the LPGA Tour Lotte Championship in April this year, will participate and aim for the first gold medal in the tournament’s history. Jen Beiyun (Taiwan) and Aditi Ashok (India), who play on the LPGA tour, are also receiving attention.
Korea is the country that has won the most gold medals (13 silver and 9 bronze) in golf at the Asian Games in history. At the 2006 Doha and 2010 Guangzhou Games, they swept four gold medals for two consecutive years. The gold vein ended with the gold medal (Park Gyeol) in the women’s individual event at the 2014 Incheon Games, and at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, there was only ‘no gold’ for the first time in 20 years.