April, 2024: There’s something about KFC

Asian Tour star Denwit Boriboonsub was well and truly on the road in April, competing in Saudi and Korea before heading to Japan. In his April diary he talks about how the defence of his title in Saudi went, and the experience of playing in the GS Caltex Maekyung Open for the first time, where he also watched his first baseball game. Denwit was speaking to Asian Tour contributor and former Tour player Olle Nordberg

Since the last edition of my diary, the first event I played in was the Saudi Open presented by PIF in Riyadh where I was defending champion – and it was a great experience.

Being the defending champion on the Asian Tour for the first time felt special, there were a lot of media and attention.

Unfortunately, I didn’t play that well, particularly in round three. But overall, it was pretty good, I finished tied 17^th in the end, on seven under par for the week.

I wasn’t nervous teeing it up as the defending champion, not really, but I guess I was struggling with my game a bit before the first round. My driver wasn’t sharp, my irons were pretty poor, and my wedge game was really bad, my putting too. The game just wasn’t good enough in the first three days. I didn’t make any birdies, as I didn’t get close with my wedges, and I didn’t really get the ball up and down around the greens much either.

Denwit (back right) went to watch a baseball game in Korea with a group of friends during the week of the GS Caltex Maekyung Open.

The third round was really a struggle, I shot 76. When you can’t make birdies with your wedges, and when your driving isn’t good, it’s difficult. Plus, in that round the wind was pretty strong compared to the other rounds.

But I just managed to figure it out in the last round. When I won last year I ate KFC every night, and so I had KFC for dinner on Friday night, and on Saturday I went out and crushed it, carding a 63, which is eight-under. Yeah, it was quite amazing. I just tried to be patient out there, I had an early tee time too so there wasn’t much wind out there, and I stayed patient. And the putting just took care of it all.

I didn’t do anything much after coming back from Saudi. I just came back on Sunday and rested the whole week and didn’t play much golf. Like the whole week I didn’t do anything much because the weather in Thailand is just super-hot this time of year, so I didn’t want to go outside to play.

We then headed to Korea for the GS Caltex Maekyung Open, and it was really nice to get to some cooler weather. I started off the week on Tuesday by going to see Richard T. Lee’s coach Jack Kim at 88 Country Club outside of Seoul. The lesson was great, we just changed a little bit on my address position and a bit on the wrists in the backswing, and yeah, I think it’s going to be better than before. For now maybe it was just a one-time visit, but we’ll see later how it works.

A 63 on the final day in the Saudi Open presented by PIF saw him tie for 17th. 

We also had a bit of fun on Tuesday night when we went to a baseball game at the Seoul Olympic Stadium to watch the DooSan Bears against the Samsung Lions – two of the Korean professional baseball league teams. It was fun, the stadium was quite crowded with about 20,000-25,000 fans there, and it was a great experience. It was my first time watching baseball and I didn’t really understand much about the game and rules, but the atmosphere was very nice.

Playing the legendary tournament course Namseoul Country Club for the first time, the course is really tough. Honestly it doesn’t suit me much, because I’m not used to playing on tight courses and the fairways are pretty tricky. You can get an uneven lie anywhere and the greens have a lot of undulations and are very fast too.

I think the most difficult thing about Namseoul is the narrow fairways and the fairways are like a first cut of rough and easy to get fliers. The greens are also tricky, but you can still hole putts because they are almost perfect.

I felt a bit rusty earlier in the week after my practice round, but I’m ok with the result in the end finishing tied 37^th because it’s my first time playing in this tournament. This course is quite difficult, but I think I could do better.

I was a bit disappointed with the final round shooting four over, but the conditions were very difficult with rain all day. The greens there are tricky, but with the rain on them, they were even trickier than before. It was just so difficult to play.

After Maekyung I stayed in Seoul for a few days with my manager Tom Su and other people from my management company. We did some sightseeing and did some stuff in Gangnam. After that we headed to Japan for two weeks, in Osaka, to prepare for and play in the US Open qualifier at Hino Golf Club on May 20^th.

I’m really looking forward to playing in the US Open qualifier. Last year there were around 30 guys playing for only three spots, so it will not be easy to get through. But it’s a great opportunity for me. I’m already qualified for The Open after finishing tied third in the Malaysian Open, so it would be awesome to play in two Majors this year. I’ll let you know how that went next time!