Tournament info

• Tournament: Kolon Korea Open presented by ELORD
• Date: June 20-23, 2024
• Leg: seventh event of 2024 season
• Edition: 66th (Asian Tour 1998-2004, 2006-2008, 2018- 2023, no event due to Covid in 2020)
• Venue: Woo Jeong Hills Country Club, Cheonan, Korea
• Course designer: Perry Dye & Dye Design Inc.
• Year opened: 1993
• Course record: eight-under-par 63. Rickie Fowler (2011), Kyungnam Kang (2006)
• Par/Yards: 71 / 7,326
• Purse: KRW1,400,000,000 (approx. US$1.013 million)
• Field: 144
• Format: 72-hole stroke play
• Cut made after two rounds for the leading 60 players and ties including amateurs
• Social Media Hashtags: #KolonKoreaOpen #whereitsAT

Seungsu Han at the winner’s press conference last year.

Field breakdown

• Order of Merit winners: Sihwan Kim (US) 2022, Jazz Janewattananond (THA) 2019
• Nationalities: 15
• Past winners of the tournament in the field: Jazz Janewattanond (THA), Seungsu Han (USA), Junseok Lee (AUS), Minchel Choi (KOR), Minkyu Kim (KOR), Yikeun Chang (KOR), Seunghyuk Kim (KOR), Sangmoon Bae (KOR)
• Defending champion: Seungsu Han (US). Winning score at same venue was six under. He won by six strokes over Korean Kyungnam Kang in 2023
• Top contenders: Hongtaek Kim (KOR), Richard T. Lee (CAN), Takahiro Hataji (JPN), Younghan Song (KOR), Yubin Jang (KOR)
• Highest ranked player on OWGR: Takahiro Hataji (JPN) #222
• Highest ranked player on 2024 Asian Tour Order of Merit: Hongtaek Kim (KOR) #4
• Amateurs: 8
• Korean players in the field: 96

Two places in The Open are up for grabs this week.

Tournament notes:

• The tournament is part of the Open Qualifying Series (OQS). The leading two players, not already exempt, will gain exemption into the 152nd Open Championship to be held at Royal Troon in July.
• Defending champion Seungsu Han won on the Korean PGA Tour last month at the KB Financial Live Championship. 2022 Korea Open champion Minkyu Kim won the week after at the 14th Descent Korea Match Play.
• With the top three players on the Order of Merit not playing this week joint fourth place players Takahiro Hataji and Hongtaek Kim will have a chance to move up to third in the rankings with a win.
• Hataji captured his first Asian Tour victory at the 103rd New Zealand Open presented by Sky Sport in early March this year, and also won the Kansai Open Golf Championship on the Japan Golf Tour in May for his second professional victory.
• When Hongtaek Kim won the GS Caltex Maekyung Open Golf Championship in a playoff against Thailand’s Chonlatit Chuenboonngam in early May, it was his first Asian Tour victory and second as a pro since he won the 2017 Caido Series Donga Membership Group Dynamic Busan Open.
• Canadian Richard T. Lee is off to a good start to his season and narrowly missed the play-off with Hongtaek Kim and Chonlatit Chuenboonngam at the GS Caltex Maekyung Golf Championship. He has also posted an eighth-place finish at the International Series Macau presented by Wynn, a third place at the SK Telecom Open and a tied seventh at the 67th KPGA Championship With A-One CC, the latter two events part of the Korean PGA Tour.
• Yubin Jang from Korea is the current leader of the Genesis Point Ranking on the Korean PGA Tour with a runner up placing and three other top 10s so far this season, one of those being a tied fourth at the GS Caltex Maekyung Open Golf Championship.
• Korean Changsang Han won this tournament a record seven times, between 1964-1972. The only year he didn’t win in that period was in 1969. Of current players in the field, only Sangmoon Bae has won the tournament more than once, in 2008 and 2009.
• The tournament, inaugurated in 1958, has been played at Woo Jeong Hills since 2003.

Yubin Jang was the leading amateur last year, finishing tied 28th. He starts as one of the favourites this week having turned professional last year. He currently leads the Korean PGA Tour money list.