By Jonathan Sanfilippo
Staff Reporter
This wasn't the kind of performance Choi Kyoung-ju had hoped for.
After coming into the week with aspirations of contending for the Buick Invitational title, South Korea's top-rated men's golfer didn't even make the cut.
Choi shot a combined score of 5-over-par 149 ― 72 in the first round and 77 in the second ― during the first two days of the tournament on Thursday and Friday at Torrey Pines Golf Club in San Diego, causing him to miss the cut by four strokes and leave the event tied for 119th place.
Choi had just one birdie during his two rounds, while tallying four bogeys and one double bogey.
It was an uncharacteristically poor performance for Choi, who won his previous outing, the Sony Open on Jan. 10-13 in Hawaii, and came into the Buick Invite rated seventh in the world rankings and second on this year's U.S. Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) Tour money list with $1,021,500 (967 million won).
South Korea has two lesser-known golfers in the Buick tournament, who have fared better than Choi.
Park Jin shot an even-par 72 in the third round on Saturday to bring his total score to even-par 216. That puts him in a tie for 42nd place, 18 strokes behind the leader, Tiger Woods of the United Stated, entering Sunday's final round.
South Korea's Yang Yong-eun also made the cut after shooting a 1-over 145 the first two days. However, Yang did not finish the third round, causing him to leave the tournament tied for 67th place.