Madasom (25, Samchully) has won two KLPGA tours in a year.
At the fourth round of the Hana Financial Group Championship (total prize money of 1.5 billion won) held at Bear’s Best Cheongna Golf Club (par 72) in Incheon on Monday, Madasom shot an eagle and nine birdies without bogey to post 11-under 61 overall, and won the title with 19-under 269 overall. He is a whopping nine strokes ahead of Yoon Na-na (21), who finished 10-under.
With this, Madasom has won two tours in a year since winning his first regular tour in September last year at OK Savings Bank’s Eatman Open. Madasom only made it to the top 10 in 23 competitions this year, but he turned the tables and lifted the trophy at the Hana Financial Group Championship.
The shot at Hole 4 (par 5) was the decisive factor. His approach shot from 77.1 yards out was sucked into the hole cup. Having made consecutive birdies at the previous two holes, Madasom took the lead by four shots from the second place. Madasom sealed the victory by making four consecutive birdies at Hole 10-13.
Madasom was a former member of the national team. He went to Canada to study abroad at age 9 and finished preparing for immigration, but he became interested in golf and even gave up immigration to pursue his dream of becoming a golf player in Korea, where he visited while studying abroad. Since then, he has been on the standing list of national teams in 2020, and has played the national flags with Yoon In-na, Lee Ye-won (21, KB Financial Group), and Bang Shin-sil (20, KB Financial Group). Having failed to show off well in professional golf since joining the tour in November 2013, he has garnered two wins overall this year, smiling broadly.
Meanwhile, Korean-Australian Lee Min-ji (28) tied for third with Patcharatan Kongkrapan (32) at 9-under 68. Lydia Ko (27) finished 10th with 6-under 282 overall. “It took me a long time to adjust to the green speed (in the beginning of the tournament), but it was good to play in Korea after a long time,” Ko said.
As a result of this competition, three players have exceeded 1 billion won in prize money for the season. While Park Ji-young (28, Korea Land Trust) first took the top 1 billion mark (1.060.27 million won), Yoon Na-na won 165 million won in prize money as the second place in this competition, recording accumulated prize money of 1,038.6 million won. Park Hyun-kyung (24, Korea Land Trust), who tied for fifth at 8-under par, also received 56.25 million won in prize money, recording accumulated prize money of 1,042.94 million won. 메이저놀이터
There were only four seasons in the KLPGA Tour in 2016 (Park Sung-hyun and Ko Jin-young), 2019 (Choi Hye-jin and Jang Ha-na), 2022 (Park Min-ji and Kim Soo-ji) and 2023 (Lee Ye-won and Lim Jin-hee). There has never been a time when more than three players have exceeded 1 billion won, but a true record was born this year.