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New venue for the ninth edition
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Will the cream rise to the top again at Woo Jeong Hills
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Read my Bank of Utah Championship preview here
Tournament History
This is the ninth edition of the Genesis Championship but it's only the second time it's featured on the DP World Tour.
The first eight editions, including last year's on the DP World Tour, won by Byeung-hun An in extra time, were staged at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea but the tournament moves to Woo Jeong Hills Country Club this time around.
The tournament is co-sanctioned with the KPGA TOUR, with a field that will comprise of 90 DP World Tour players and 36 from the KPGA TOUR, and it's a vital tournament for those plying their trade on the DP World Tour.
As the last counting event of the regular season, the top 110 players on the Race to Dubai Rankings at the conclusion of the tournament will earn their DP World Tour cards for 2026, while the top 70 will qualify for the DP World Tour Play-Offs.
The DP World Tour playoffs consist of just two events - the Abu Dhabi Championship in a fortnight's time and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai the following week.
Venue
Woo Jeong Hills CC, Cheonan, South Korea.
Course Details
Par 71, 7367 yards
Designed by Perry Dye in 1993, the son of legendary designer, Pete Dye, Woo Jeong Hills is a long, tough, hilly, bentgrass course with water in play on the majority of holes.
Since 2003, and up until this year, when the event switched to the brand-new La Vie est Belle Country Club, Woo Jeong Hills has hosted the Korea Open on the KPGA TOUR.
Rickie Fowler won his first professional event at Woo Jeong Hills, way back in 2011, beating the runner-up, Rory McIlroy, by six strokes having reached 16-under-par, the lowest winning total here in more than 20 years (matched by K.H Lee in 2016).
Major winners, Y.E Yang, Vijay Singh and John Daly have also won the Korea Open at Woo Jeong Hills and that's a big clue in itself.
Min-kyu Kim won the 2024 edition here with an 11-under-par total but the four winners before him won with a single-figure total, demonstrating just how tough a layout this is.
Weather Forecast
TV Coverage
Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 4:00 on Thursday in the UK.
Korea Open Winners at Woo Jeong Hills with Stats
2003 - John Daly -6 (no stats available)
2004 - Edward Loar -2 (no stats available)
2005 - Gwang-soo Choi -2 (no stats available)
2006 - Y.E Yang -14 (no stats available)
2007 - Vijay Singh -6 (no stats available)
2008 - Sang-moon Bae -11 (no stats available)
2009 - Sang-moon Bae -10 (no stats available)
2010 - Y.E Yang -4 (no stats available)
2011 - Rickie Fowler -16 (no stats available)
2012 - Dae-sub Kim -5 (no stats available)
2013 - Sung-hoon Kang -4 (no stats available)
2014 - Seung-hyuk Kim -2 (no stats available)
2015 - K.H Lee -13 (no stats available)
2016 - K.H Lee -16 (no stats available)
2017 - Yikeun Chang -7 (no stats available)
2018 - Min-Chel Choi -12 (no stats available)
2019 - Jazz Janewattananond -6 - DD 13, DA 27, GIR 5, SCR 1 PA 7
2020 - Cancelled due to pandemic
2021 - Junseok Lee -8 (no stats available)
2022 - Min-kyu Kim -4 - (no stats available)
2023 - Seungsu Han -6 - (no stats available)
2024 - Min-kyu Kim -11 - DD 21, DA 6, GIR 1, SCR 13 PA 1
Stats key
DD - Driving Distance
DA - Driving Accuracy
GIR - Greens In Regulation
SCR - Scrambling
PA - Putting Average
With stats produced for only two of the 21 course winners this century, we don't have much to go on statistically but what is immediately apparent is the calibre of some of the winners here.
In addition to Rickie Fowler and the aforementioned three major winners, Sang-moon Bae and K.H Lee, who have both won on the PGA Tour, have also been victorious at Woo Jeong Hills so the cream tends to rise to the top suggesting it may not be a great week for long-shots.
Will the Bubble Boys make a move?
There are DP World Tour players in the field this week that are desperate for a good finish to either secure their playing privileges for next season or to earn a spot in the playoffs.
Those outside the top 110 in the rankings will need to raise their game to keep their cards and that creates a lot of pressure, but they'll also feel they have nothing to lose, and that's even more the case for those that have their playing rights wrapped up but that are eying a spot in Abu Dhabi in two weeks.
It would be no surprise at all to see one or two players that sit around the 110-mark contending and it's even more likely that we see players just outside the top 70 finding something extra.
In-Play Tactics
There have been a couple of strange results here.
Y.E Yang sat tied for 12th and 10 strokes back after 54 holes back in 2010 before he went on to win.
The five-stroke third round leader, Seung-yul Noh, who shot 79 on Sunday, certainly helped his cause and it looks like poor weather helped too given there were so few rounds in the 60s in round four. Yang shot 66 to win by two!
The latest course winner, Min-kyu Kim, trailed by six at halfway when he won here for the first time in 2022 and Sang-moon Bae was nine adrift in a tie for 33rd at halfway in 2009 but every other course winner this century has been inside the top eight places after 36 holes and 54 holes leaders have a great record with nine of the 16 players to hold a clear advantage through three rounds going on to win.
Min-kyu Kim was trailing by two after three rounds last year and he was three adrift with a round to go in 2022 but nine of the 13 course winners since Yang closed from off the pace 15 years ago were leading or tied for the lead with 18 to play so making up ground in round four looks tricky.
Likely Candidates
I'm away for a few days so I won't be updating again with any selections before the off, but Matt Cooper will be back with the Find Me a 100 Winner column in a day or so and I'll return with the In-Play Blog at the weekend.
Although he's never played here competitively (if at all), the defending champ, Byeung-hun An, is an interesting runner given he finished fourth in Japan in his last start two weeks ago and not having played here doesn't look like it'll be a huge handicap.
Of the other high-profile players in the field this week, Si Woo Kim is the only one to have played here before but in two previous visits, in 2009 and 2011, he failed to make it through to the weekend.
Of the most likely candidates, the one I like the best is the 2019 Genesis Championship winner, Sungjae Im, who has a very fair recent record in his homeland.
In 15 starts before his win in this event six years ago, Im had finished inside the top 10 just twice but in his last six starts, he's put up form figures reading 1-39-1-2-1-MC and we can probably ignore that last effort at the end of April this year given it was only two weeks after he'd finished fifth in the US Masters and a week after he'd finished 11th in the Heritage.
Im won this event at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea with a -6 total, and he also won his first PGA Tour title, the Cognizant Classic, having reached only six-under-par so he doesn't mind a tough test.