By Jonathan Sanfilippo
Staff Reporter
After struggling at a tournament last week in Hawaii, Choi Kyoung-ju will get a chance to redeem himself.
The South Korean golfer will participate in another event in the islands when he competes in the Sony Open, held Thursday through Sunday at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu.
Choi is one of at least four players with Korean roots who are entering the Professional Golf Association (PGA)-sanctioned event, which will award $5.3 million (5 billion won) in total prize money, including $936,000 (881 million won) to the winner.
Joining Choi will be Koreans Park Jin and Yang Yong-eun, along with Kevin Na, a Korean American who was born in Seoul, and a slew of golfers from other areas of the world.
For Choi, the ninth-ranked player in the world, the Sony Open will be an opportunity to get back on track after beginning the 2008 PGA Tour with a lackluster showing at last week's Mercedes-Benz Championship in Kapalua, Hawaii. He shot over par in the first two rounds of that four-day tournament and ended up finishing tied for 28th.
This will be Choi's third straight year competing in the Sony Open. After tying for 13th at the event in 2006, he improved last year to finish in a tie for the fourth, five strokes behind the winner, Paul Goydos of the United States.
The Sony Open will be the first PGA event of the year for Park, Yang and Na. None of those three played in the Open last year.