"For the first time in two years," "This time," Kim Si-woo and Ahn Byung-hoon hunt to win the PGA Tour's Sony Open
"For the first time in two years," "This time," Kim Si-woo and Ahn Byung-hoon hunt to win the PGA Tour's Sony Open
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Kim Si-woo (29) and Ahn Byung-hoon (33) will start hunting for their first PGA championship in the 2025 season.
The Sony Open will be held at the Waiali Country Club (par 70) in Honolulu, Hawaii on Saturday (Korea time). It is the "land of promise" that gave both players good memories.
Kim is about to make a comeback in two years. She married fellow golfer Oh Ji-hyun in December 2022, and won the title at the championship in January 2023. She also had a come-from-behind victory in Hawaii where she visited early on for her honeymoon thanks to her new bride. It was her fourth career victory.
One more person has been added to the cheering squad this year. He is the son who was born in February last year. "The Sony Open is an even more special competition because we won the championship right after our marriage," Kim Si-woo, who is training in Hawaii, told reporters in a video interview on Tuesday. "I came here with my wife and baby this year, and I will remember the memories from two years ago and play well."
Ahn Byung-hoon is determined to win his first career PGA Tour victory cup after shedding his disappointment of finishing second last year.
Ahn tied for first place with Keegan Bradley and Grayson Murray (U.S.) through the fourth round of the championship last time, before moving on to overtime. However, in the playoff held at Hole 18 (par 5), Ahn missed a 1.3 meter birdie putt, and had to settle for second place. Ahn has finished second five times without winning a PGA Tour title.
"Although I finished second place unfortunately last year, the Sony Open was a competition that instilled a lot of confidence in me," Ahn said in a video interview with reporters on the day. "I won the last championship (Genesis Championship) last year and achieved all my goals. I want to achieve a better result this year than last year."
Both Kim and Ahn displayed confidence in the course of the competition. Kim said he would focus more on putting and Ahn said he would focus more on fairway.
"The course is full of good spirits that gave us the victory two years ago. The fairway is narrow, but it is easy to tee off enough to allow open play in all courses," Kim said. "I think we need to focus on putting in order to score well."
Ahn Byung-hoon said, "The fairway is hard and rough. It's important to keep the fairway because there are a lot of flyers in the rough. The green is not fast, but it's narrow, so I'll pay attention to the short putt." 메이저사이트
"I want to win several games each, but it's not easy," Kim said. "I want to win my first game of the season as soon as possible. I always showed good performance in a season when I won my first game as soon as possible."
"I have three goals this year. I want to win the PGA Tour, rank in the top five in major competitions, and advance to the Tour Championship," Ahn said. "I want to perform well at the Masters among major competitions. If I could have done better in my putt last year, I could have expected to be in the top 10, but it was a shame." Ahn tied for 16th at last year's Masters.
Kim Si-woo plays with Nicholas Echavaria of Colombia and J. T. Poston of the U.S. in the first round, and An Byung-hoon plays with Chris Kirk of the U.S. and Taylor Pendris of copyright.