Choi Seung-bin (25, CJ Group), Ok Tae-hoon (28, Geumgang Housing), Kim Baek-jun (25) and Lee Jeong-hwan (35, Woori Financial Group) will tee off Thursday at the Genesis Scottish Open, a $9 million purse event held over four days at Renaissance Club (par 70, 7,282 yards) in North Berwick, Scotland.
Choi earned his spot by finishing tied for seventh at the Genesis Championship last year — a co-sanctioned event between the KPGA Tour and the DP World Tour — claiming the invitation reserved for the top KPGA Tour finisher at that tournament. Ok and Kim qualified on the strength of their top Genesis Points standings for the 2025 season.
Lee enters on a DP World Tour exemption after winning the Genesis Championship last year.
Choi arrived in Scotland six days before the tournament to begin adjusting to local conditions. "I'm genuinely grateful just to be playing in this event, given how much I want to compete on overseas tours," he said. "The wind here is strong and the turf is very different from courses back in Korea. The course is firm throughout, so I've been focusing on my short game to prepare."
He added: "I hope all the Korean players in this field play with confidence against the international competition. I'll do my best to show what I'm capable of. I'd love plenty of support from fans back home."
Ok received the 2025 season Genesis Award and reflected on what the honor had already brought him. "Winning the Genesis Award last year gave me the chance to compete at the PGA Tour Q-School final and on the DP World Tour, and experiencing different course layouts and weather conditions across various countries has been a great help to my career," he said. "This is my first time at the Genesis Scottish Open and my first time on this course, so there will be challenges, but I'll give everything I have until the very end."
Kim finished second in the Genesis Points standings last year and said he had been preparing specifically for the demands of the course. "I've heard the course is extremely rugged and difficult, and that the wind can be fierce, so I figured a wide variety of shot-making would be required," he said. "I've been working on as many different shots as possible, both in practice and during domestic tour events. I want to enjoy my first PGA Tour start without putting too much pressure on myself."
Lee will make his third consecutive appearance at the Genesis Scottish Open this week. He qualified on Genesis Points in 2024 and 2025; this year he enters as a DP World Tour winner. Lee debuted at the 2024 edition on the strength of a second-place Genesis Points finish in 2023, completing the event tied for 46th. He missed the cut last year.
The four are joined by PGA Tour regulars Im Sung-jae (28, CJ Group), Kim Si-woo (31, CJ Group) and Tom Kim (24, Nike), bringing the total number of Korean players in the field to seven.
yjc@heraldcorp.com
