Page 19 - Golf Champion - August 2024

his first senior major championship
on Sunday. Despite a poor start to his
final round – he was 3 over through
six holes – Choi, who was protecting
a one-shot lead to start the day,
returned a 2-under 70 to win by two
shots over Australia’s Richard Green
in the final major of the PGA TOUR
Champions season.
Choi struggled to manage the slower
speed of Carnoustie’s greens to
start his round on Sunday, and he
continued to give away a lead he’d
steadily built through three days.
Just as he had rebounded from
back-to-back double bogeys late on
Saturday with a magnificent birdie
at Carnoustie’s penal closing hole
to get in with 70, he would bounce back from Sunday’s
triple bogey to fall into a playoff at The Open Championship
slow start, too, producing a stirring stretch of golf that
in 1999, which he eventually lost) coupled with a lengthy
separated him from the field.
birdie by Green at 18 left the winning margin at two shots,
Choi’s run started with a 10-footer for birdie at the par-4 but it was fairly stress-free for Choi once his tee ball at 18
ninth, his first birdie of the day, and he was just warming stopped just feet from tumbling into that darned, winding
up. After a tap-in birdie at the par-5 12th, where he pitched burn.
to a foot from beyond the green, Choi stuffed an approach
A couple of easy wedges, a couple of putts, and Choi had
to 2 feet at the 165-yard 13th, then provided an exclamation
his own scaled-down claret jug. Winning an Open title in
with a 35-footer for eagle at the 513-yard 14th.
Scotland carried great significance to Choi.
There, he faced 235 yards for his second shot and needed
The Open Championship was one of the few golf
only 195 yards to clear a bunker protecting the entry to
tournaments he could watch growing up in Korea, before
the green. It called for a perfect 5-iron, and he pulled it
he entered the military.
off, his ball bounding onto the green and finishing 35 feet
He credited the links for providing a difficult exam –
from the hole.
“Carnoustie (Golf Links) unbelievably tough,” Choi said,
When the right-to-left eagle putt tumbled in along the
smiling – and noted the significance his victory will carry
right edge of the cup, Choi, his hand raised to the sky, had
back in his native country. “Is my dream,” Choi said.
popped free from a handful of contenders to emerge at 11
“Very historical for Korean player to win this.”
under par, four shots clear of his closest pursuers. For all
the chasers, it was a stunning gut punch. The Senior Open Once Choi peeled off out practically
out of sight, it was left for Green to battle England’s Paul
Choi, the first player from Korea to win on the PGA TOUR
Broadhurst – a winner the last time The Senior Open was
and DP World Tour, and a man with 33 international
staged at Carnoustie, eight years ago – to tussle for second.
victories to his credit – they include THE PLAYERS
Green, 53, a tall, thin left-hander who finished T4 at The
Championship in 2011 and seven other PGA TOUR titles –
Open Championship (won by Padraig Harrington) some
knew what to do from there. K.J. Choi buries eagle putt at
17 years earlier on the same links, would birdie the last to
The Senior Open Choi earned his first senior major title,
cement the runner-up finish.
becoming the only player in the field to reach, then finish,
double digits below par at demanding Carnoustie. Green has yet to win on PGA TOUR Champions, but again,
he was right there, showing a complete game.
He completed 72 holes at 10-under 278. A safely-played
bogey at the 499-yard 18th (where Jean van de Velde made That’s three times in 2024 that Green has been third or

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