Yang Ji-ho (34) tied for the lead on the first day of the Hana Bank Invitational토토사이트.
Yang Ji-ho shot a 7 under par 66 in the first round of the Korea Professional Golf (KPGA) Korean Tour Hana Bank Invitational (total prize money of 1 billion won) held at Isumi GC (par 73, 7625 yards) in Chiba Prefecture, Japan on the 15th. He recorded 7 birdies, 1 eagle and 2 bogeys. Yang Ji-ho tied for first place with Sato Taihei and Hirata Kensei (above Japan).
The tournament will be held in Japan jointly organized by the KPGA and the Japan Professional Golf Tour (JGTO). It is attracting attention as a tournament held on the longest battlefield among the KPGA Tour tournaments this season. Before the tournament, players said, “There are five par 5 holes, and the key here is to reduce the number of strokes.” Yang Ji-ho performed particularly well on the par 5 hole on the first day. I caught 3 birdies and 1 eagle in 5 par 5 holes.
The 17th hole (par 5) eagle was the highlight. After hitting a tee shot with a driver, he hit the second shot with a 5-wood from a distance of 240m. This is attached to the 9m around the green. He then succeeded in chip-in eagle and cheered.
Yang Ji-ho has experience playing in the first and second division tours in Japan. He won the first division seed in 2012 by winning the Challenge Tour Noville Cup, a second division tour of Japan. However, from 2012 to 2014, he failed to achieve his dream in the first division, participating in 24 tournaments and missing the cut 13 times. After the first round, Yang Ji-ho recalled the time when he was active in Japan and laughed, saying, “I didn’t have good results in the first part tour in Japan, but I played hard.” He, who has a bad memory in Japan, smiled widely in Japan after a long time.
He won the first championship in his life at the KB Financial Live Championship last year. His wife Kim Yu-jeong, who worked as a caddy at the time, handed an iron to Yang Ji-ho, who took out a 3-wood to hit aggressively on the last hole, and gave advice. Kim Yoo-jung is currently Yang Ji-ho’s caddy.
Yang Ji-ho, who left a splendid winning story last year, has been stagnant this season. He missed the cut twice in nine contests, and never finished in the top 10 even in contests where he passed the cut. Yang Ji-ho looked back and said, “Even though I always started at the top of the first and second rounds, I couldn’t achieve outstanding results.” He continued, “Even if the season performance is not good, I tried to focus only on my own play rather than being impatient. His shot is stabilizing a little bit since last week,” he said.
He said that his putts were sluggish this season and he was boiling inside. In this tournament, he explained that he changed the atmosphere from a two-ball putter to a straight putter, and it worked well.
On the other hand, Jung Chan-min and Kawamoto Riki, who drew attention with their head-to-head match between long hitters representing Korea and Japan, were shaken by heavy rain from the afternoon. Jeong Chan-min was sluggish with a 1-over-par 74.
Last year’s runner-up Lee Kyu-min tied for 6th with a 5 under par 68. He said, “As it is a tournament with good memories, I will aim for the top 10 if I pass the cut.”