Ko Jin-young and Park Min-ji also failed to win first place, a ‘KLPGA record’… So Kim Su-ji’s ‘average batting average’

Park Ji-young (26), who won the Hana Financial Group Singapore Women’s Open in the opening game of the 2023 season of the Korea Women’s Professional Golf (KLPGA) Tour held in Singapore, pointed out “most wins” and “least number of strokes” as goals for the 2023 season without hesitation. Both records are things Park Ji-young has yet to achieve, so she seems to be greedy.

The lowest number of strokes award is the highest honor for a golf title that top golfers want to win at least once. The desire to become the prize money champion is not easily revealed. This is because there are many top golfers who think that prize money comes naturally if you work hard. If the prize money king is ‘silly’, the lowest stroke award is ‘honour’.

As all golf fans know, the main character of the KLPGA Tour’s lowest stroke award in the 2022 season is Kim Su-ji (26), the ‘Autumn Queen’. Kim Su-ji, who recorded 70.47 strokes, narrowly beat Hae-ran, who scored 70.57 strokes, and ranked first in average strokes. Prize money king Park Min-ji (24) was third with 70.70 strokes, and Park Ji-young, who aimed for the lowest stroke award in the 2023 season, was fourth (70.71 strokes).

If you look at the change in Kim’s average at-bats ranking in recent years, you can see what a great turnaround he has achieved. Suji Kim, who started with 31st place in average at-bats in 2017 as a rookie, recorded mediocre records with 38th place in 2018 and 31st place in 2019, and then fell to 89th place in 2020. In 2020, Kim Su-ji, who had to play a seed match to stay at 84th in the prize money ranking, jumps to 12th in average at-bats with two wins in 2021. And in the long-awaited year of 2022, it created an ‘incident’ that proudly ranked first in the average at-bats category, which had never been in the top 10.

Since Pak Se-ri won the KLPGA Tour’s lowest score in 1996, the best players of that year have been honored with the highest score for 27 years. Since Pak Se-ri left for the U.S., there have been two players who have received the lowest number of strokes for three consecutive years. Kang Soo-yeon from 2000 to 2002 and Shin Ji-ae from 2006 to 2008 are the main characters. In addition, there is one more player who has topped the average at-bats three times, and it is Kim Hyo-joo, who received the lowest at-bats award for two consecutive years in 2013 and 2014. Kim Hyo-joo later entered the LPGA and did not receive the KLPGA lowest scoring award, but after concentrating on the domestic tour in 2020 when Corona 19 was extreme, he became the protagonist of the lowest scoring award again. Kim Mi-hyeon (1997/1998), Lee Bo-mi (2010/2011), and Lee Jung-eun 6 (2017/2018) are also players who have won the lowest batting average for two consecutive years.

Jang Ha-na, the main character of the lowest at-bats award in 2021, is a case where she was honored with’five times in four matches’ after finishing second place four times. In 2013 and 2014, he was pushed by Kim Hyo-joo, and in 2019 he fell behind Choi Hye-jin. And in 2020, I had to give up the first place to Kim Hyo-joo again. Jang Ha-na, who ranked first in average at-bats in 2021, suffered from an ankle injury this year and rode a roller coaster that fell to 77th in average at-bats.

In the meantime, there have been six records of breaking the average at-bats of 70. Looking at the trend of the lowest at-bats record, Shin Ji-ae recorded 69.72 pars in 2006, breaking the 70-pars barrier for the first time, breaking the new record for the lowest at-bats. exceeded this record. Then, in 2020, Kim Hyo-joo hit 69.56 again and became the main character of a new record for the lowest number of strokes.

There are two players who have never received the KLPGA’s lowest stroke award despite their overwhelming performance. First of all, there is Ko Jin-young, who is ranked No. 1 in the world. Ko Jin-young ranked second in average at bats twice before moving to the LPGA stage, but she failed to rank first in 2016, behind Park Seong-hyun and Lee Jung-eun 6, in 2017. However, Jinyoung Ko fulfilled her ‘wish’ that she could not achieve on the KLPGA tour by ranking first in average strokes on the LPGA in 2019.

Another is Park Min-ji, who won the money prize with six wins each last year and this year. Kim Soo-ji and Park Min-ji, a ‘2017 newcomer’, ranked 16th in average batting average that year, but since then, 8th in 2018, 5th in 2019, 4th in 2020, 4th in 2021, and 3rd this year. I made it to the top 10, but I haven’t reached the top spot yet. 메이저놀이터

For 7 years, from ‘2014 Kim Hyo-joo’ to ‘2020 Kim Hyo-joo’, the main characters of the prize money king and the lowest at bat were all the same. However, in the past two years, when Park Min-ji recorded the 1st and 2nd place in the season prize money record, different faces took the prize money king and the lowest at-bats award. Although it hasn’t been officially revealed yet, Park Min-ji may be setting a goal for ‘the lowest batting average’ like Park Ji-young.