“Tank” Choi, Bulls-Eye On 4th Place

"I`ll focus on making big pounds rather than small pennies."

“Tank” Choi Kyung-joo (Superior, Taylormade) made a correct conjecture on the new season`s managing tactics.

Choi Kyung-joo pocketed $219,000 (nearly 260 million won) of the total prize money ($5.3 million) as he ended up tied for fourth place with a score of 9 under par, 279, in the PGA tour “AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Tournament.”

Choi had been knocked out in the preliminary rounds of the FBR Open, which was his first tournament for the season, but he grabbed an average of over $100,000 in each open.

The reason why Choi distinguished between tournaments he should go for or not is that he had been “dogged-out” due to continuous participations in tournaments last year. Choi always collapsed on the brink of winning a crown.

Choi showed up in 32 tournaments last year and had been cut off 7 times. He accumulated $1,999,663 in winnings, which is an average of $62,488 per tournament.

The one player that participates only in his top condition is the “King of Golf,” Tiger Woods. Woods took part in 18 tournaments last year with no preliminary fallouts and won 5 championships which took him to 2nd place on the “money list” with winnings of $6,673,413. That calculates to $370,000 (nearly 440 million won) each tour.

On the other hand, Vijay Singh (Fiji), who played his fourth tournament of the year, notched his first win of the season at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am with 16 under par for a final score of 272, and extended his “Top 10” streak to 12. Singh is the currently on the top of the “winnings list.”

In the mean time, with rising confidence, Choi will be participating in the Viewic Invitational next week, which the total prize money is $4.5 million.

ysahn@donga.com