Sungjae Im and Si Woo Kim helped South Korea land gold at the Asian Games and their heroics earned them the welcome bonus of military exemptions from national service.
This year was the first time professionals were eligible to represent their countries in the Asian Games. South Korea selected two amateurs and Im and Kim, who were the highest-ranked men in the Official World Golf Ranking at the time the team was picked.
The selections paid off as South Korea topped the leaderboard by a whopping 25 shots to claim gold, despite the eyes of much of the golfing world being on the Ryder Cup. And now a relieved Im , ranked 27th in the world, knows his mandatory 21-month national service will be reduced to a few weeks of basic training instead.
Im , 25, reflected: “I think I should be able to stay focused even more on the PGA Tour. I feel like I can have a really long and successful run there. I think this will help me so much mentally.”
Im finished runner-up in the individual portion of the event with Kim three shots behind in fourth place. The two Korean amateurs – Yubin Jang and Wooyoung Cho – came in fifth and T-6 in a dominant performance at West Lake International Golf Course in Hangzhou in China.
A delighted Im added: “This has been the longest four days of my career. Every hole felt so important, and I knew every shot counted for our team event. I wanted to fight for every shot and do the best I could until the finish.”
PGA Championship winner YE Yang and eight-time PGA Tour winner KJ Choi both completed their military service in their 20s before their golf careers took off but Sangmoon Bae is an example of how it could disrupt a promising golf career.
Bae had won twice on the PGA Tour when he had to do his military service in 2015 aged 29 – and he’s never quite found his form again.
Im and Kim missed the chance to avoid military service when they failed to grab a medal of any colour at the last Olympics in Tokyo. Unlike the Olympics, where any medal will do, it has to be gold at the Asian Games. Korean males have to complete their military service by their mid-30s, so both 25-year-old Im and 29-year-old Kim were starting to run out…
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