Tournament of champions to close out KLPGA season at SK

The SK Shieldus-SK Telecom Championship tees off at La Vie est Belle Golf & Resort in Chuncheon, Gangwon on Friday. Defending champion Park Min-ji and multiple previous winners of the season will vie for a chance to lift the last trophy of the year.

Park Min-ji hits a shot during the SK Shieldus-SK Telecom Championship at La Vie est Belle Golf & Resort in Chuncheon, Gangwon on Nov. 13, 2022. [NEWS1]

The SK Shieldus-SK Telecom Championship tees off at La Vie est Belle Golf & Resort in Chuncheon, Gangwon on Friday, with multiple previous winners joining a packed tournament for a chance to lift the final trophy of the year.

A total of 78 golfers will compete in the 54-hole no-cut tournament for a grand prize of 200 million won ($153,600).

Defending champion Park Min-ji, the KLPGA's winningest golfer with 18 career titles, will return to the green after skipping three weeks of competitions due to nerve pain. A victory at the SK Championship would allow her to defend her title and become the first-ever golfer to win the tournament three times.

"I realized how fortunate it is to compete in a tournament in good health," Park said in a press release released Tuesday. "I feel a lot better as I constantly took care of myself and trained. I will work to get a good result with nice shots."

Lee Ye-won, with three KLPGA wins under her belt this season, will compete alongside Park to win a fourth tournament after locking in the Money List and Wemade award last week at the S-Oil Championship where she finished as a runner-up.

The Money List is the title conferred to the golfer who has accumulated the biggest prize money bag from KLPGA events of the season. Lee has earned over 1.4 billion won, nearly half a billion more than Park Ji-young, coming in second with about 970 million won.

The Wemade award is a title given to the golfer with the most amount of Wemade points, earned by golfers who've managed a top-10 finish in a KLPGA event. The higher finish a golfer manages in a KLPGA tournament, the more points she earns.

Lee has accumulated 651 points across 13 events this season, with No. 2 Im Jin-hee having earned 558.

"I am really delighted and happy about winning both the Money List and the [Wemade] award, but I will do my best through the end as there is one last tournament," Lee said.

If Lee finishes the SK Championship as a sole runner-up, she could even break the season prize money record, currently held by Park, who took home 1.52 billion won in 2021.

This year has been Lee's most successful season, as she won all three of her titles in the past seven months. She first won the Lotte Rent-a-Car Ladies Open in April and went on to add two more trophies, at the Doosan E&C We’ve Championship in August and Hite Jinro Championship in October.

Alongside Lee, nine other golfers claimed their first-ever KLPGA titles this season.

A new first-time winner at the SK Championship would make the 2023 season with the most amount of first-time winners ever with 11 in total. This season has already seen the most amount of first-time winners at 10, tying with the 2017 season.

All 10 first-time winners will see the SK this weekend, including Bang Shin-sil, who has secured two titles so far.

Competition will be high at the Tour's close, with 2019 SK Championship winner Ahn Song-yi and 2017 winner Ji Han-sol joining the star-studded field. Im, another three-time winner this season, is also headed for the green.

Last weekend’s winner Sung Yu-jin, who claimed a victory due to the cancelation of the last round of the S-Oil Championship, is skipping the event. The KLPGA organizing committee reduced the tournament to a 54-hole stroke play event due to heavy rain on the last day of the event and named Sung the winner as she was the frontrunner on moving day.

Golfers who could have won the S-Oil Championship might find their redemption in the SK instead.

Kim Jae-hee, who was a frontrunner during the last round when the KLPGA organizing committee canceled the tournament, is competing in the SK Championship to secure her first-ever title.

Kim was forced to finish as a joint runner-up at the S-Oil Championship with Lee as they were tied in second place on moving day.

The trio of Ahn, Han Ji-won and Kim Ji-hyun will be the first to tee off on the first hole at 9:30 a.m. on Friday. At the same time, Song Ga-eun, Choi Min-kyung and amateur Jung Ji-hyo will start on the 10th hole.

The SK Championship will be broadcast through SBS Golf. It's the last official tournament of the 2023 season, but the Wemix Championship — the KLPGA’s unofficial event — will tee off on Nov. 18.

The Wemix Championship will be an exhibition event in which 24 golfers will compete to earn prize money — in Wemix, a cryptocurrency issued by game runners Wemade.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]