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The post A wrist stretch to add some much-needed extra yardage to your drives appeared first on Golf.

Here’s an easy 60-second stretch that’ll get your mitts warm so you can max out your clubhead speed and, more important, avoid injury.

Simply extend your lead arm with your palm facing down. Using your opposite hand, pull your lead hand straight down (1), using pressure to elongate the muscles in your wrist. Hold for 10 seconds. Next, rotate your arm so that your palm is facing up and do the same: Pull your fingers down and hold (2). You should feel a good stretch from the tips of your fingers through your palm and up to your elbow. As you can guess, you should repeat these stretches with your trail hand.

Now these important speed producers are warm and ready for action. It’s also not a bad idea to do a quick version of these stretches before attempting a shot from deep rough, when most wrist injuries occur.

Scott Munroe is a GOLF Top 100 Teacher who teaches at The Boca Raton Club in Boca Raton, Fla., and Nantucket GC in Siasconset, Mass.

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Here’s how to visualize what you need to do. At address, picture a line running straight down to the ground just off your lead shoulder (below, left). Just as you reach the end of your backswing, your goal is to shift your body forward, getting your lead shoulder a good half foot in front of the imaginary line (below, right). Notice in the picture how everything — my head, torso, hips and lower body — have shifted toward the target.

When attempting this, a lot of rec players simply tilt their hips toward the target. That’ll only cause your upper body to hang back and move the bottom of your arc behind the ball. Not good!

Once you get it right, you’ll not only hear the sound of pure compression, you’ll feel it. 

Brady Riggs is a GOLF Top 100 Teacher who teaches at Hansen Dam GC in Pacoima, Calif., and PGA WEST Golf Academy in La Quinta, Calif

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The post If you’re a baseball fan, you NEED these headcovers appeared first on Golf.

The post If you’re a baseball fan, you NEED these headcovers appeared first on Golf.

The Designated Hitter driver sheath ($195) is constructed of hand-laced, distressed leather. Think of it as a catcher’s mitt for your big stick.

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Dormie also offers baseball headcovers for your fairway wood (Pinch Hitter), hybrids (Switch Hitter), blade (Bullpen XL) and mallet (Closer and Walk Off).

These Cooperstown-worthy covers are meticulously constructed by Dormie Workshop craftsmen in Canada. And while the Blue Jays haven’t been to the World Series in 30 years, their passion for the game remains.

Check out Dormie’s baseball-themed headcovers available at Fairway Jockey below. Click the link to add to cart, and get ready to play ball!

Dormie The Designated Hitter Headcover

$195

The summer breeze, the green of the grass, the hot dogs… so many similarities between golf and baseball we had to make this summer classic! Distressed top grain leather with pull up effect Hand laced paneling Debossed Dormie branding Dormie baseball embroidered patch Velvet soft liner Driver Only

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Dormie The Closer Mallet Putter Headcover

$150

The Closer Mallet is designed to close out your competition on the course and secure the win. Plus is looks amazing in your bag. Top grain leather construction Baseball stitching embroidery detail Super Soft Liner Foam padding Magnet Closure

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The post Looks are everything: Why South Korea is golf apparel’s most major player appeared first on Golf.

The post Looks are everything: Why South Korea is golf apparel’s most major player appeared first on Golf.

While specific numbers are difficult to track, it’s estimated that golfers worldwide spend around $9 billion on golf apparel each year — and 45 percent of that is spent by South Koreans. (For those keeping score, the U.S. consumers’ share is around 25 percent of the global fashion pie.)

What South Koreans buy is youthful, trendy and, most times, expensive, and, with more and more luxury brands entering the space, golfers in the Land of the Morning Calm often drop more than $700 dollars (U.S.) for just a pair of trousers and a polo.

Traditional looks in Korea still indeed hold sway, thanks to stalwart apparel players like Titleist, Golden Bear, TaylorMade and Callaway. Other brands, such as Master Bunny Edition, Pearly Gates, St. Andrews and Amazing Cre, continue to see success with consumers in their 30s through 50s, especially the “business-man” set.

But with the pandemic came a sea change, igniting a boom in apparel activity and spending. It also affected design. With millennials and Gen-Z golfers suddenly flocking to the game during Covid-19, looks from trendy brands such as G/FORE, Malbon and PXG started flying off the shelves, thanks to the younger population’s preference for wearing golf togs wherever and whenever — not just on the course or at the range.

As you can see from the photos below, a legitimate blurring of the lines between golf and fashion now reigns in South Korea. The success seen in the lifestyle market has influenced even the most premium of fashion brands, including A.P.C., Lanvin and Philipp Plein, to launch golf apparel lines in South Korea.

Nike Golf — as you’d expect — also has a concrete fan base in South Korea, thanks to its more reasonable prices and the long-standing Korean perception that Nike is a quality brand for sports in general. But make no mistake — golfers south of the 38th parallel love their athleisure. Number one in this category is the Korean-born brand XexyMix, which has found a way to appease Gens X through Z in equal amounts. Acceptable for work, then a hop to a screen-golf facility once the whistle blows.

There’s an old adage that golf usually takes its cues from the U.S. and Japan. You can argue that Korea now holds that position in the wardrobe space. What you see here might be what you’ll be wearing very soon.

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The post How to describe South Korea’s golf courses? Unique, elusive and very, very exclusive appeared first on Golf.

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South Korea is roughly the size of Indiana, and, although it’s comprised of 3,400 mostly uninhabited islands, 70 percent of its terrain is mountainous. Yet it’s home to 51 million people and about 500 golf courses. (Indiana, with a population of just 7 million, has a little over 400 courses.) Against that backdrop, you can appreciate that land is at a premium. For space reasons, the best South Korean tracks are typically at a distance from Seoul, and they capitalize on the country’s uncommon beauty and natural features.

Take members-only Nine Bridges, the top-rated course in South Korea (and No. 87 on our list of the Top 100 Courses in the World), which is set on an expansive property on Jeju Island, south of the Korean peninsula. One of GOLF’s course-rating panelists, Adam Messix, paints a vivid picture of the place.

“Nestled on a beautiful mountain plateau above Jeju City, Ron Fream and David Dale’s design has standout holes throughout,” he says.

“The risk-reward par-5 3rd sets the tone for the round, and the center-line bunkers on the 6th create thrilling options off the tee. The 8th is an amazing, short par 4 with a cleverly designed green complex that proves tricky for the Tour players at the annual CJ Cup. The angled tee shot on the 11th is both tempting and challenging, where birdies and double bogeys — is there any greater complement? — come in equal numbers. The finishing hole is option laden, with multiple places to position your second shot and the potential of a heroic long carry to set up eagle on the picturesque island green. Strategic, photogenic, challenging and fun, Nine Bridges strikes all the right chords.”

Situated off the country’s southeast coast, South Cape Owners Club offers dream golf along its rugged cliff shoreline, with sea views from every hole. American architect Kyle Phillips produced this masterpiece — a gorgeous routing with dramatic moments on both nines that have you hitting over and beside the ocean several times. Fashion magnet J.B. Chung was the visionary behind the ultra-luxe resort’s creation, and his custom music room is the perfect place for post-round chill-outs.

Located northeast of Seoul, Whistling Rock is nestled into the mountains, with interrelated rushing streams and ponds serving to accent the hilly terrain. It’s worth noting that the name Korea stems from Koryo, the dynasty that ruled for nearly four centuries. Loosely translated, it means “land of high mountains and sparkling streams.” When the South Korean conglomerate Taekwang Group decided to develop a private golf club in 2006, its chairman’s marching orders were to create a place that achieved the “harmony of art and nature.” Americans Ted Robinson Sr. and Jr. designed the initial 27 holes and Eric Iverson later refined it with some fabulous greens and artful bunkering.

Even when land isn’t easily available, South Koreans find a way. That’s what happened at the mainland’s Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea, where property was reclaimed from the sea to build a course that hosted the 2015 Presidents Cup. It’s a true urban course with skyscrapers, luxury condos and a bridge serving as distinctive backdrops.

South Korea’s upper-end courses — which, by design, are breathtaking and highly exclusive — include massive, architecturally stunning clubhouses of the sort not found anywhere else. Most of the world’s clubs would crack under the expense of these places. Initiation fees can run well over $1 million. But South Korea’s elite courses are often linked to mighty corporations. Example: CJ Group’s support of Nine Bridges and the equally impressive Haesley.

The experience of playing golf at the country’s best courses — which also include Pine Beach and Robert Trent Jones Jr.’s Anyang CC — is a celebration of South Korea’s beauty and prosperity. On the public front, the pickings are slimmer. American architects, including Kyle Phillips and Jim Engh, have built public-access courses, but public golf is still costly. Remedying that situation isn’t easy. For now, a lot of the golf in South Korea is, as my colleague Josh Sens has described, found at multilevel driving ranges and the thriving sim scene.

Like we said, South Koreans are irrepressibly industrious.

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The Etiquetteist: South Korea Edition

No. 1: At the country’s high-end golf courses, caddies are de rigueur and, generally, female. Four bags are strapped along the back of a large cart, which carries all four golfers and typically stays on the cart path. Your caddie runs back and forth to retrieve whatever clubs you and your playing partners need.

No. 2: In most cases, it’s mandatory to book a foursome, and if you can only muster three players, you still pay for four.

No. 3: Caddies are often quite animated, and they genuinely cheer you on. They celebrate birdies, sometimes by placing a gold star on your scorecard, sometimes by attaching small, inexpensive charms — a butterfly, maybe, or a heart — to your driver headcover.

No. 4: Wagering is standard — sometimes only for caddie fees, but not many matches are played for pride or score alone.

No. 5: Between nines, there’s a customary 20- to 30-minute break for a light sit-down lunch and (usually) a beer. It’s not the prolonged mid-round meal you find in Japan, but it’s not a quick turn either.

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No. 6: Jumping ahead of a group is pretty much forbidden, even if they lag at the turn.

No. 7: At one ultra-high-end course, eagles are commemorated with a personalized certificate, which is presented mere minutes after putting out on 18.

No. 8: While birdies and eagles are justly celebrated, holes in one will cost you. More than post-round drinks are on the line; elaborate meals and perhaps even a night on the town are as well.

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What was that collective moment — or who was that galvanizing hero — for the people of South Korea?

“Easy answer: Se-Ri Pak,” says GOLF Top 100 Teacher Brian Mogg, who’s run an academy in the country since 2009. “Some of the kids who are 20 or 22 years old, we ask them how they got here, what their reason for playing is. They all say the same thing: ‘When I was three years old, I saw Se-Ri on TV holding up a trophy and I wanted to be like her.’ ”

To truly understand why Pak — a 25-time winner on the LPGA Tour and 2007 inductee into the World Golf Hall of Fame — remains a cult icon in South Korea, you first have to familiarize yourself with a culture that puts powerful emphasis on pride, discipline, competitiveness and respect. Ask any professional golfer what it takes to excel and those same words might surface.

It’s that attention to detail that has made South Korea a hotbed of golf instruction. But unlike in the States, the experience is more than just a few hours a week between student and teacher. It’s a lifestyle commitment that, often, involves the focus of a player’s entire family. Mogg understood this early on and employed former LPGA players to serve as coaches at his academy in Seoul. These aren’t just instructors; they purposefully play the role of parental figure for many of the students.

“They’re a big part of my success,” Mogg says.

Even with the encompassing support provided by Mogg’s team, parents are still heavily involved in every aspect of a player’s progress. Mogg remembers the all-in experience of one of his former students who eventually turned pro and, as is not uncommon in Korea, was counted on to increase the family’s fortunes.

“A lot of times, when a student shows up for their lessons, the family comes as well,” he says. “The family’s buying into the dream, and it’s the family’s dream to have this child raise them to a higher level. It’s bigger than just going pro. These kids are expected to be the next superstar.”

Perhaps for good reason. Children don’t play casual golf in Korea. They’re not even allowed on most courses. They are either on a competitive path or not, in part because instruction in the country is crazy expensive — about ten grand a month at a typical academy. That pressure rolls back on the player if they are lucky enough to make it on the pro circuit. And, remarkably, many do. In the current Rolex rankings, 30 of the top 100 female golfers in the world hail from Korea.

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Brian Mogg isn’t the only instructor struck by the intense commitment of young Koreans. Kenny Kim, a former U.C. Irvine collegian and pro who’s one of two Korea-based instructors at an academy owned by GOLF Top 100 Teacher Chris Mayson, grew up in Korea before moving to the U.S. at age 11 to pursue the game under the influence of his parents, who figured the States would better prepare him for a career in the sport.

After his playing days ended at age 29, Kim returned to Korea to focus on helping young golfers learn the game, using his own upbringing as a blueprint to connect with their values and hard work. His students work relentlessly.

“It’s Monday through Friday or Saturday,” he says. “These kids are here all day, every day. I know they’re committed.”

Everything, Kim says, is about competition. “[In Korea], kids will tell me how they need to shoot 80 to beat another kid. I’m like, ‘No, you just need to get better.’ ”

Another big difference between instruction in Korea versus the States? “We work on drills,” says Kim, “but we don’t really have access to golf courses.” Mogg echoes that, describing small side rooms in which students, with putting mats and eyeline mirrors, will spend hours practicing their stroke.

“An American player would literally spend 90 seconds there each day,” he says, “but these kids will put in an hour on a two- or three-foot putt, trying to see if they can start the ball dead straight.”

Features

There’s a widespread perception that Korean golfers spring from a rigid, assembly line system that stamps out robotic clones. In fact, that system not only allows for individualism, it encourages it. That’s another unique adjustment Mogg has had to make. Method teaching — in which you commit to just one style of instruction — isn’t considered acceptable in Korea. The most successful instructors take an approach that carefully caters to each student.

“While the Korean style of learning is more left-brained and technical,” Mogg says, “you still have to work with each person, to treat them as an individual and to make sure your lessons are being conveyed that way. I have to fight my natural instincts and [adapt] to how naturally they learn the best.”

Still, Mogg finds teaching in the country to be tremendously rewarding. He had the honor of coaching the first-ever major champion born in Asia, Y.E. Yang, who surged from behind to defeat Tiger Woods at the 2009 PGA Championship.

The memory is still fresh. “After Y.E. won the PGA, we landed in Seoul at 4:30 in the morning,” Mogg says. “Y.E. is holding the Wanamaker Trophy and we walk out of this little baggage claim area, turn the corner, and it had to be the equivalent of The Beatles coming to America — the hero returned home and all of Seoul was in the waiting room to greet and celebrate him.”

No doubt, somewhere in Seoul, a young Korean had eyes on Yang and his gargantuan trophy, maybe saw themselves in him and fell in love with the game.

We all have that singular moment.

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It’s a rags-to-riches tale: South Korea, since its war against the north, has catapulted its way from being a very poor country to one of great wealth and prosperity. In fact, in 2022, its GDP hit $1.65 trillion, making it the 13th largest economy in the world. A chunk of that money has been funneled into the golf space.

South Korea–based companies have become some of the game’s most important corporate sponsors. Upscale auto manufacturer Genesis, a subsidy of Seoul-based Hyundai, sponsors two events on the calendar, including the Genesis Invitational, hosted by Tiger Woods, and the former Los Angeles Open, which has been a Tour stop since 1926. That early-season tune-up event is buttressed by July’s Scottish Open at Renaissance Club the week before the Open.

Genesis says golf is a reflection of its values (“respect, integrity and excellence”) but that sponsoring events goes well beyond just hitting a key demographic in countries around the world. It embodies the country’s corporate hospitality model for esteemed guests, referred to in Korean as Son-Nim, an honorific title for customers.

Earlier this year, another venerable PGA Tour stop, the Byron Nelson Classic, was rebranded as the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, reflecting Korean conglomerate CJ Group’s deep inroads to the sport, which began with its sponsorship of Se-Ri Pak in 2001. Young Han, in CJ’s sport marketing division, says, “We started with Se-Ri and that was the company’s first international or global marketing campaign.”

The company realized, after supporting women golfers for so long, that it needed to help grow the men’s game as well. They started with sponsoring individual players before hosting the CJ Cup at Nine Bridges in 2017. “We’re trying to connect the Korean lifestyle and food within the tournament,” Han says. “So we’re bringing our flavors to a sports platform by providing the best food they can have at the golf tournament. We brought 14 chefs to the tournament last year to do player dining.” The tournament sponsorships are “there to amplify our marketing strategy but also to bring the lifestyle of fun, ease and an enjoyable atmosphere at the same time.”

The vibrant golf-simulator scene in Seoul is dominated by Golfzon, but another Korea-based sim manufacturer, Uneekor, is moving a lot of product in the States with both top-of-the-line sims and those most golfers can afford. Companies like Uneekor and others (along with a slew of investor support) have helped launch the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy TMRW Sport venture TGL, set to debut in January with Genesis as the league’s first founding partner. TGL, with its city-based club teams, will seek to replicate some of the Korean screen-golf competition. “Korean brands like Genesis already embrace our three pillar goals: incorporating technology, leveraging quality celebrities in the sport and providing a unique experience for the fan,” says Katy Mollica, head of global partnerships at TMRW Sport.

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The premium South Korea-based ball manufacturer is Volvik, which is best known for its colorful matte finishes and long-time association with World Long Drive. This spring, TaylorMade Golf, based in Carlsbad, Calif., moved production of some its more popular and Tour models to a plant just a few hours south of Seoul. Private equity and real estate firm Centroid Investment Partners actually owns TaylorMade, having acquired the gear manufacturing giant in 2011. (Centroid also invests in TM staffer Tiger Woods’ Popstroke and Sun Day Red ventures.)

“TaylorMade believes that the Korean marketplace is ripe with potential for growth,” says David Abeles, CEO of the equipment company. “Korea is the third largest golf market in the world, and our business is strong there, but we felt, through an alliance with Korean investors, we can further enhance and grow our business in a meaningful way globally. And that certainly has happened.”

Twenty-three years ago, Titleist was brought under the umbrella of FILA Korea, though it is still owned and operated by the Acushnet company in Fairhaven, Mass. As late as this past July, rumors in business circles were swirling that yet another Korean firm was set up to acquire another one of America’s big five manufacturing giants.

The Pacific Basin, in general, represents two of the largest golf markets, Japan and South Korea, and penetrating both of these, from a business perspective, is really to penetrate the entire world. With golf’s continued popularity, it only makes sense that Korean companies are seeing big opportunities on the game’s biggest stages. They’re looking to make inroads into the larger American and European markets. Stay tuned.

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***

On a sweltering afternoon in Seoul’s Gangnam district, the most expensive zip code in South Korea, I’m standing outside Pastel Golf Club when a Maserati pulls up to the bag drop, easing to a stop behind a Lamborghini. A young man in neon golf attire hops out.

An attendant grabs his sticks — gold-plated PXGs, custom Scotty Cameron putter — while another staffer bows and grabs the clubhouse door. It’s a grand entrance for a guy who’s come to hit balls off a mat into a net.

“As you can see,” Jin-Woo Kim tells me through a translator as the man walks by, “this is a premium experience.”

Slender and dapper in a dark black suit, Kim is the general manager of Pastel GC, which, despite its name, is not a golf club. It’s a driving range squeezed into a neighborhood of high-end department stores and luxury towers. Through the clubhouse lobby, Kim leads me past a restaurant and a pro shop to a practice complex, where indoor putting greens and simulator stations look out on triple-decker hitting bays. Each stall is outfitted with stat-tracking technology, and all are occupied. Balls pop up automatically on rubber tees. Drives max out, mid-flight, inside a meshed enclosure before dropping to a tarp that protects the showy cars parked in the lot below.

“We are busy like this almost all day and night,” Kim says.

There are many ways to measure golf ’s prominence in South Korea. One is to tally the number of LPGA Tour winners the country has produced (49). Another is to tick off economic stats. South Korean companies spend lavishly on golf. They own such leading brands as TaylorMade and Titleist and provide title sponsorship to several PGA Tour events. South Korean consumers punch above their weight as well, shelling out more per capita on gear and apparel than their counterparts anywhere else. It all adds up to the third-largest golf market in the world, after the United States and Japan.

No single metric, though, conveys the full story. The game’s impact across the country is cultural and economic. It rounds out business deals, influences fashion, gives shape to retail and recreation trends. In the wealthiest corners, it informs the rhythms of daily life.

Out of a population of 51 million, about one in 10 South Koreans plays golf. (In the U.S., that figure is closer to one in 13.) How they play is another matter. Mostly, they don’t play on real courses. But it’s not that South Korea lacks these options. In the past 20 years, the number of green-grass layouts in the country has nearly doubled, from around 250 to upward of 500. Many, though, are private, with initiation dues north of $1 million. And nearly all are situated far from major cities, accessible by roads that back up like rush-hour freeways in L.A.

Given the time and cost involved in getting out, a lot of golfers wind up staying in instead, hitting balls into nets and screens. Nowhere in the world are alternative forms of the game more popular. And nowhere is that popularity more apparent than in Seoul, the capital, where covered ranges rise like scaffolding on the skyline and simulator venues are as common as karaoke joints.

THEY SERVE a karaoke-like function too. In Korean, the word bang means room, and it is widely used in reference to themed-entertainment venues where people come to party and pursue a pastime, often in that order. A noraebang, for instance, is a singing room, while a PC bang is an internet cafe that draws a fair share of avid gamers. Screen-golf bangs in South Korea started gaining steam in the early aughts, propelled by a company called Golfzon, an industry disruptor that has grown into an establishment force, commanding around 60 percent of a domestic screen-golf market that generates an estimated $1.6 billion in annual revenue.

Today, Golfzon has more than 8,700 locations around the country and another 1,050 around the world, including 160 in the U.S. These venues range in size and swankiness but all revolve around rooms for sip- ping, snacking and smacking shots into screens. According to the company, some 94 million rounds were logged on Golf- zon simulators in South Korea last year, nearly twice the number of traditional rounds played nationwide.

“I fell in love with the game in a place like this,” Taehyun Kong says.

IT’S ANOTHER sauna of a day, hot and muggy. But we’re in an air-conditioned suite in an office high-rise: Golfzon’s largest location in the capital. Kong, an effervescent 31-year-old with the broad-shouldered build of the baseball standout he used to be, is standing on an artificial-turf tee, waggling a driver, taking aim at a simulated fairway. When Kong was growing up, no one in his family played golf. He didn’t touch a club until he was 15, when an injury sidelined him from the diamond and friends invited him on a screen-golf outing.

“It was so much fun,” Kong says. “I was hooked right away.”

Though Kong still plays on simulators for kicks, his passion has become his profession. He’s among the stalwarts on the GTour, the world’s first and largest professional screen-golf circuit. Launched by Golfzon in 2012, the GTour has held more than 200 tournaments and given out nearly $12 million in prize money. Its events are staged in a screen-golf stadium at Golfzon Zoimaru, a sprawling theme park about three hours from Seoul, and broadcast live on national TV.

Not even the most ardent screen-golf lovers would argue that simulated golf and real golf are the same. But they might call them complementary while pointing to statistical correlations between the two. Surveys show that 64 percent of golfers in South Korea play both forms of the game, and industry studies indicate that, over the past decade, the two sectors have grown hand in hand.

Screen golf, of course, is an easier way to get started, with lower costs — some $20 per round to rent a simulator room, depending on the time of day and location, compared to green fees that can fetch 10 times that much — and a gentler learning curve.

“No wind or rain,” Kong says. “It’s just easier to play.”

Still, the skills are transferable. This past July, the GTour golfer Hong-taek Kim, nicknamed “the King of the Screen” for his 12 wins on the circuit, claimed a green-grass victory on the Korean PGA Tour. (Many GTour golfers play the KPGA as well; others supplement their income as golf instructors and social-media influencers.) And he’s not the only screen golfer whose game can travel. Kong himself gets it around nicely on real courses. He’s a member of the Korean national golf team and a former semifinalist in the Asian Games, with a sturdy swing that he’s getting ready to show off now.

His waggle finished, Kong takes a mighty lash, launching a ball into the screen. He grins and flexes playfully. “Bryson DeChambeau!” he says, as his drive soars through a digitized sky, landing more than 300 simulated yards away.

THOUGH SOUTH KOREA has a fledgling First Tee program, it is not a country rich in grassroots golf. Very few people speak of “growing the game.” At most courses, kids aren’t allowed to play. Even elite juniors strike the bulk of their shots at academy practice ranges.

That’s where the alt-golf market comes in. In recent years, nontraditional golf venues have been going to greater lengths to reach a younger demographic. Golfzon is the biggie in the screen-golf sector, but its main competition comes from the internet conglomerate Kakao, a relative newbie to the space, whose golf simulators feature colorful animated characters. Grandpa is clearly not the target market. On the outskirts of Seoul, meanwhile, where land is less expensive than it is in the city center, tricked-out driving ranges cater to Gen Y and Zers with everything from music and glow balls to laser shows.

Among the most impressive of these youthful concepts is ShowGolf, which, fittingly, was founded by a golf industry outsider, an up-from-nothing entrepreneur named Joseph Cho. Born to a working-class family in Seoul, Cho had no contact with the game until his early 20s, when, after military service in South Korea’s special forces, he took a job in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a security guard for a diamond dealer. There, in his off-hours, he was introduced to golf on a ramshackle course.

From Africa, Cho moved to California, where he worked as a janitor in a sports stadium and a burger flipper in a fast-food joint, before returning to his home country in the early 2000s, right around the time that a course-construction boom was getting underway. Seeing an opportunity, Cho launched a tee-time booking service.

“I spent years cold-calling courses,” Cho says. “Nobody knew me. Nobody wanted to hear from me. It took me years, but I finally broke through.”

The business made Cho a wealthy man while opening his eyes to other golf-related prospects.

“Golf in Korea is a rich person’s sport,” he says. “But other people should have a chance to play it too.”

In 2019, he unveiled his first ShowGolf, a multitiered, high-tech driving range that is something like a Topgolf with a street-punk tinge. The walls are covered in graffiti. The soundtrack spans from rock to K-pop to R&B. Kids are welcome. Pets are too. Operating hours are from midmorning to 2 a.m.

“I’m trying to make it easy for everyone,” Cho says.

ShowGolf now has five locations, and Cho has become an industry insider. He runs one of the country’s largest golf-merchandise shows and recently bought a golf resort in Japan. Though he’s not a member of any fancy club, he has friends in high places and gets invited to outings often.

His participation is conditional. “I’ll play if someone else is treating,” he says. “But I’m not going to pay that kind of money to play golf.”

OTHERS FEEL the opposite. “I might play screen golf if my tee time gets rained out,” Tyler Kwon says. “But otherwise, never, really.”

It’s early morning, midweek, and Kwon is at the wheel of his white Mercedes, navigating outbound traffic on his way to play the game as he prefers to play it. His destination is Bear Creek Golf Club, one of his favorite courses, about an hour from Seoul.

A lushly maintained, water-laden layout with ample elevation changes, Bear Creek reflects the pervading course aesthetic in South Korea, where the rustic elements of modern minimalism hold little sway. This is partly due to the terrain; much of South Korea is mountainous and rocky, ill-suited to links-inspired designs. But it’s also a matter of consumer taste. As is true in much of Asia, browned-out and bouncy are not preferred conditions. Augusta-green is the favored look.

A construction company owns Bear Creek, which hints at something else about the game in South Korea: Municipal golf is close to nonexistent. The vast majority of clubs are privately owned. Quite a few belong to the country’s largest conglomerates, including Samsung, Hyundai and CJ Group. Corporate memberships abound.

Such arrangements are a natural extension of a culture in which golf and business flow seamlessly together. Unlike in the U.S., where on-course wheeling and dealing is often frowned upon, talking shop at the club is standard practice in South Korea, expected and respected.

“If you look at the foursome ahead of you,” Kwon says, “there’s a good chance it’s a CEO playing with three clients or colleagues.”

Kwon is well-connected in those circles. Born in the U.S. to Korean parents, he grew up in New York and worked on Wall Street after college before moving on to a finance job in China. Now in his early 40s, he heads his own Seoul-based private equity firm. Most weeks, he gets out at least once, playing with a small, rotating group of friends. In South Korea, it helps to have a reliable cohort. Almost without exception, courses require that tee times be booked for four and charge full freight no matter how many people wind up playing. Groups, consequently, get filled out in advance. The sight of a single on the putting green, waiting to be paired with strangers, is as rare as an albatross.

On this morning, two of Kwon’s playing partners have beaten us to Bear Creek. They’re sitting in the clubhouse when we arrive. One is Austin Na, older brother of the PGA Tour veteran-turned-LIV-golfer Kevin. Like his younger sibling, Austin grew up in Southern California, immersed in the game. “But it was pretty obvious from an early age that Kevin had more competitive drive,” Na says. “He was also just better at golf than me, so my parents basically said, Okay, Kevin’s going to be the golfer, you focus on school.”

A fine player in his own right, Na wound up carving out a different place in the industry, as a TV commentator for South Korea’s version of Golf Channel and as one of the country’s most sought-after instructors, whose stable of students includes top players on the KLPGA and KPGA tours.

As it happens, a KLPGA tournament is beaming from a TV in the Bear Creek clubhouse. That’s usually the case at almost any course on any given day in South Korea. Dominant on the global stage, South Korean women rule the domestic market too. Their tour holds more events than the men’s circuit, pays bigger purses and draws greater media attention. Its players attract more sponsors too.

Male or female, though, nearly all elite golfers in South Korea have something in common: They start young and follow a prescribed path that calls for single-minded focus.

“It’s not like in the States where you can pick up the game by maybe going to the driving range with your parents or playing the par 3s, and after a few years, if you’re really good at it, you might consider taking it further,” Na says. “In Korea, you don’t see casual junior golfers. The game is too expensive and takes so many resources, your parents aren’t going to just let you pick it up as a hobby. From the get-go, it’s all-in.”

Playing recreationally requires commitment, too, and not just because of the commute. Few rounds in South Korea break land-speed records. Even breezy outings routinely take five hours and include a light sit-down lunch or snack at the turn, an interlude that lasts some 20 to 30 minutes. Every foursome is accompanied by a caddie, who drives the group around in a five-person cart that can also be remote-controlled and never leaves the path. Long walks from ball to buggy are part of the deal. Because gambling is standard, grinding is too. If you’re stuck behind slowpokes, so be it. Playing through is not permitted.

“Things are definitely more formal than in the States,” Kwon says.

It’s a shade past noon, and he and his group are more than midway through the back nine and about four hours into their round. They’ve been doing some waiting, but no one seems to mind. The mood is light. Though they’re playing a match, the stakes are low, with little more than bragging rights on the line.

Not that things couldn’t suddenly get expensive. Make a hole in one in South Korea and you aren’t just buying drinks. You’re tipping the caddie (“anywhere from $500 to $1,000,” Kwon says) and treating your playing partners to a big night out. “And when I say big, I mean big,” Kwon says. “We’re talking $5,000 to $10,000 or more.”

It could be worse. In past generations, tradition called for the lucky golfer to outfit each of his playing partners with tailored suits.

The 18th hole arrives at Bear Creek, and no one has made an ace. But with his final putt, Kwon makes birdie, which he uses as an excuse to needle Na.

“Maybe I should be doing the teaching,” he says.

In Korean, giving someone grief is known as giving someone “Gucci.” On the course, even smack talk has a luxe tilt.

The banter continues over post-round drinks. Wisecracks. Ribbing. In between laughs, Kwon checks his phone.

“Uh oh,” he says. “We should get going.”

There is now an obstacle that no golfer in South Korea, no matter how skilled or well-connected or obsessively invested in the game, could overcome without a helicopter. The traffic has turned. The same drive that took less than an hour in the morning is going to eat up more than double that in reverse.

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The post Hostile Solheim Cup crowds? Charley Hull says bring ’em on appeared first on Golf.

The post Hostile Solheim Cup crowds? Charley Hull says bring ’em on appeared first on Golf.

So why was Hull “gutted” the first time she qualified for the European team? Read on. This interview originally appeared in the September issue of GOLF Magazine.

***

The scene: Hull is calling from Foxhills CC in Surrey, England, capping off a practice session.

Dylan Dethier: You grew up in a small town a couple hours north of London. What’s your first golfing memory?

Charley Hull: When I was, like, three, I’d play with my dad down at his golf course, Kettering Golf Club. I used to just walk around with him at first. Then we’d play.

DD: Did you play other sports or was it always golf?

CH: I did play [soccer] and stuff like that, but I spent every day at the golf course.

DD: And were you good at the game right away?

CH: Yeah. Everyone used to say I always had that “natural talent.”

DD: What’s the first time you remember being clearly good in a way that was different from everyone else?

CH: When I was seven years old, I beat a 17-year-old boy, and I think that’s when people started saying, “Ooh, she’s pretty good.”

DD: What was his reaction?

CH: He was mad. After I beat him, he just said, “F—ing girls.”

DD: Did you really love the game or was it just, y’know, part of your life?

CH: I loved it. It was all I knew, really, so I didn’t think about it. But I just loved being on the golf course.

DD: Now you’ve been a pro for over a decade. Do you have the same relationship with the sport as you did when you started?

CH: I don’t know. It’s something that’s been in my life — well, I’m 28, so for, like, 26 years. So I’m just so used to it. It’s my routine. When I don’t have it, I feel lost.

News

DD: When you made the 2013 Solheim Cup team, you were the youngest Cupper in history. What do you remember from that week?

CH: So, my first Solheim Cup came when I was 17, and in singles I played Paula Creamer, who was one of my idols, and I beat her 5 and 4 and got her autograph afterward. I wasn’t trying to be like, “Oh, I got the autograph of the golfer I beat.” My friend had asked me to get it and so I did.

DD: Do you remember Solheim feeling different than a typical event?

CH: I wasn’t nervous. The truth is — it’s the funniest thing — I got selected to the team at the 2013 British Open at St. Andrews and I remember hearing the news and I was gutted. I had my friend’s birthday party that was that same week as the Solheim. So when I got selected for the team, I was absolutely gutted. I was like, “Oh, I can’t go to my friend’s birthday party!” Looking back now it seems silly, but I didn’t realize how big the Cup is.

In fairness, your friends only turn 17 once, 18 once. It feels like the whole world. And growing up playing golf, I missed out on a lot of things — normal things that most kids would do as part of their childhood. So I really was sad to miss it. But I guess, in the end, it’s worked out pretty well.

DD: Now that you’ve been on six of these teams, what’s different about the Solheim Cup? What makes it a special event compared to the rest of the calendar?

CH: It brings everyone together. I mean, I play for my country every week, but it’s different the way we’re playing for Europe. It’s just a fun event, a week to go out there and have a laugh with your mates. I don’t really get that nervous for Solheim, but I really look forward to it. And hopefully I’ll get paired with Georgia Hall this year. She’s a good friend, and we’ll go out there and have fun.

DD: That all sounds really laid-back. I mean, do you ever get nervous out there?

CH: I’m weird. Like, I get more nervous playing pro-ams, when we’re playing with amateurs who are expecting you to be unbelievable. And then if you don’t hit a good shot, like, they judge you. But when I’m on a golf course in a tournament, I never really get nervous.

DD: By now, you’ve seen it all at the Solheim. Is there anything about this one in 2024, down in Virginia, that you think will feel different?

CH: Mostly it’ll be more of the same, which is good. But I actually somewhat prefer playing Solheim Cup in America. I like it when the crowd’s a little bit against you. I don’t understand when people say, “Oh, you’ve got the upper hand on home soil.” I play better when people are against me, because I want to prove them wrong.

DD: Obviously, you’ve been a really well-known golfer for a long time, but this summer you experienced a new wave of popularity. You were in contention at a few big events, found yourself in the spotlight.

CH: I really have been playing good golf this year. I’ve had some really strong weeks, top 25s in the majors, except the Evian, where I was hurt. It’s been a fun year; I’m looking forward to the end of summer and fall.

DD: You had a couple viral moments as well, most memorably images of you smoking at the U.S. Women’s Open. But you said you’d left social media a few months ago. Is that still the case?

CH: Oh, yeah. I haven’t been on social media now since March. I just thought about it, and I know if I wasn’t a golfer I would never have social media. A few years ago, I went a full month without having a phone, and I loved that. So I have a couple of people who do all my social media stuff for me. I’ll just send them some swing videos or pictures every day to put up on my Instagram or some stuff to post on my story. I just thought, If I don’t have to look at anything, why do it?

DD: And for people who are getting to know you for the first time, what do you want them to know about you?

CH: Hmm. I just live life the best I can. Like, just enjoy it. Enjoy every minute. You’re not promised tomorrow. Just go out there and have fun. Just literally get the most out of life. [Noise in the background] Sorry, I’ve met up with some friends.

DD: Go live it up. Last thing: How would your friends describe you?

CH: Let me ask. [Turns to a friend.] “Funny,” one says. “Smart and caring and a little bit crazy.” I think that’s about right.

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