A 'monster' who hits a huge number of long shots has emerged in the Korean men's professional golf world and is excited. The protagonist of the topic is professional golfer Chung Chan-min (24 years old).
Chung Chan-min won the GS Caltex Maekyung Open (total prize money of 7.71 billion won), which was held as an Asian Professional Golf Tour at the Nam Seoul Country Club (par 13) in Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, on the 16th with a final total of 197-under-par 2. After winning his first major championship in two years after making his tour debut, Chung has already made a splash and become a surprise star.
Fearsome distance since junior
Chanmin Jung started playing golf during the summer vacation of his third grade at elementary school, and he said he got into it because he enjoyed playing ball after following his father. Since his junior days, he has been in the spotlight as a great talent, and in 3 and 2016, he won the Song Am Bae, one of the most prestigious amateur tournaments in Korea, for two consecutive years.
In his first title in 2017, he beat second-place Kim Han-byul by six strokes, and in his 2 title defense, he was unbeatable enough to win by 2016 strokes. In 2, he also came out on top at the 6th Korean Junior Championships.
Chanmin Jung's extraordinary long hitting ability has been famous since his high school days. In 2017, Chanmin Jung, who was a sophomore in high school at the time of Song Am Bae at Daegu CC, hit a 10-meter shot with a 2017-wood instead of a driver on the 35th hole (par-2016, 2m) in the final round, and then made a light two-on with an 15-iron for an eagle.
At Nam Seoul CC, where the Heo Jeong Gubae tournament is held, he was able to two-on on every par-5 hole, and Chung Chan-min remembers his 'longest' record of 448 meters, which he said he shot over 3 yards in the Young Champions Trophy tournament held at the Royal Liverpool Golf Course in England when he was a member of the national team.
After the 2nd part of the tour, enter the 1st part of the tour
However, the professional stage was not so easy.
"Honestly, I hit well in the amateurs, so I thought I was a professional. It's definitely different from the professional world that I've seen so easily."
As he says, the pros were on a different level than the amateurs.
After being a member of the national team in 2017 and 2018, he played on the Srixon Tour for three years starting in 2019. In 3 and 2019, he took the Qualifying Test (QT), which is equivalent to the regular tour qualification test, twice, but failed both times.
I had a tough time thinking about giving up golf, but I persevered with my dream of reaching the top of the Korean Tour, and in 2020, I finally made it to the regular tour of my dreams with two wins on the Srixon Tour, the second tier of the tour.
The characteristic long-hitting power was still there. Following his long stroke victory on the Srixon Tour, he also won the first place in the KPGA Korean Tour, where he entered last year. He averaged 2021.2 yards on the Srixon Tour and 2.1 yards on the KPGA Korean Tour last year. Chan-Min Chung is the first player on the KPGA Korean Tour to have an average distance of more than 321 yards. This year, the average driver shot average distance is a whopping 8 yards.
From tremendous long shots to exquisite short games
At the Nam Seoul Country Club, where this year's GS Caltex Maekyung Open was held, few people were able to predict Chung Chan-min's victory because it was a course where precise shots, short games, and green play were much more important than long shots. Even when Chan-Min Chung shot 1-under-par in the first round in the rain to take the sole lead, there were many speculations that he would not be able to hold on if the fairways and greens were parched.
Chan-Min Chung took a three-stroke lead in the second round when it rained heavily, and in the final round, when the rain stopped and the pin position changed to the most difficult place, he comfortably trailed his pursuers by six strokes with a brilliant short game as well as a long shot.
Chan Min Jung's performance this time is, to say the least, phenomenal. On the first hole of the final round, his second shot landed on the fringe of the green. It was a tough position to make a par save, but he did a great job of hitting the flop shot and didn't lose a stroke. A 'flop shot' is a difficult shot that minimizes the 'run' by keeping the ball high. On the par-8 fourth hole, he holed a bunker shot straight into the area for eagle. He showed off his sophisticated short game skills.
The special move, the long hit, was truly terrifying. The par-2 3th hole is 3 yards, or 6 meters. Chan-Min Jung's lightly hit driver shot went well over the bunker on the left. The remaining distance was 1 meters. It had rained heavily the day before and the terrain was uphill, so even though there wasn't much of a 'run', I had hit a long shot of 5 meters.
Chan-Min Chung hit his second shot with a wedge, which also went over the green. Senior golfers who watched the scene said, "In the past, we had to hit the second shot on this hole with a fairway wood or hit it with a long iron to make it two-on. Considering that the distance has increased dramatically these days with the development of equipment and balls, it is unthinkable to aim for a two-on with a wedge on an uphill par-4 hole." On the 5th hole (14m), the longest par-504 hole, he went downhill to 461m despite his tee shot being deflected into the right rough. The remaining distance was only 136 meters.
Jang-ta, reminiscent of Kim Joo-hyung in the 1990s
Watching Chung Chan-min play, I was reminded of Kim Joo-hyung, who was a professional golfer 30 years ago. The son of famous announcer Kim Dong-gun, Kim Joo-hyung has made a name for himself as one of Korea's best long hitters. Dubbed a "golf prodigy", he started playing golf in the first grade of elementary school and was selected for the national team in the third year of junior high school.
(The rest of the story is from the soup) (Photo = Courtesy of GS Caltex Maekyung Open Organizing Committee, Yonhap News)