Park Hye-jun aims to achieve two wins next season

“Maintaining seed ranking was my major goal for this season. I survived, so my goal for the next season is to win for the first time since my debut, maybe acquire my second, which would prove that it wouldn’t be out of luck,” said Park Hye-jun of the Korea Ladies Professional Golf (KLPGA) Tour.

Park, who finished as runner-up twice on the KLPGA tour this season, was known among fans as a rookie. Although she debuted on the KLPGA Tour in 2022, she did not have a big presence and eventually lost her seeding ranking, pushed out to the Dream Tour, the second part of the tour last year. Golf fans viewed her as a new presence as she returned to the top seed ranking again this year, finishing eighth in the second division tour.

“Since it was my first time playing in the ‘champion group’ (the group of top three players on the leaderboard in the final round), my goal was to make it rather than win,” said the 21-year-old golfer. “But even though it was my first time, I did not feel nervous at all and played assertively. I did feel like I had missed my chance to win, but since I received the runner-up prize of 132 million won, I told myself that there would be no problem maintaining my seed ranking for next year and finished the season off without much difficulty."

Park will be leaving for 40 days of winter training in Thailand starting January 6. She pointed out that her two runner-up finishes this season came in the domestic opening match and the first competition of the second half of the year (Jeju Samdasoo Masters in August).


김정훈기자 hun@donga.com