The first player to make a hole-in-one on the 17th hole at the 69th KPGA Championship with A-ONE CC will take home a Genesis G80 electrified model valued at approximately 105.19 million won ($65,400), the Korea Professional Golf Association announced Friday. The tournament began Thursday.
The event carries a total purse of 1.6 billion won, with a winner's share of 320 million won — the largest prize fund among tournaments organized solely by the KPGA Tour. A field of 156 players will compete over four rounds of 72-hole stroke play.
The 17th hole where the hole-in-one prize is on offer is the sixth hole of A-ONE Country Club's West Course — a par-3 playing between 205 and 215 yards during the tournament, making it the longest short hole on the course. Its chief hazard is a bunker roughly 3 meters deep, nicknamed the "jar bunker," lurking just short of the green, along with a penalty zone. Bunkers also guard both sides and the back of the green, leaving virtually no safe miss — though the key to attacking the hole is never coming up short.
The G80 electrified model offered as the hole-in-one prize is Genesis's flagship luxury electric sedan. In all-wheel-drive configuration, it produces a maximum output of 272 kilowatts and peak torque of 700 newton-meters.
Genesis has sponsored the hole-in-one prize on the 17th hole at the KPGA Championship for nine consecutive years, from 2018 through this year. Since 2016, the brand has also backed the Genesis Points system — the KPGA Tour's season-long standings — awarding the year's top-ranked player a bonus and a vehicle. Players finishing first and second in the Genesis Points standings also earn starts in the Genesis Scottish Open, a co-sanctioned event on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour.
yjc@heraldcorp.com
