K.J. Choi

K.J. Choi, whose full name is Choi Kyung-ju, is a South Korean professional golfer, born on May 19, 1970 in Wando County in South Jeolla Province. Before he took up golf he was a weightlifter, and in Korea he is known as Tank. He turned professional in 1994 and won on both the Korean and the Japanese tours, then came through qualifying school in 1999 to become the first Korean golfer to earn a PGA Tour card. In 2002 he won the Compaq Classic of New Orleans, the first PGA Tour title taken by a Korean, and in 2011 he won the Players Championship, for eight PGA Tour wins in all. He finished third at the Masters in 2004. He has played three times in the Presidents Cup for the International team. He has gone on winning as a senior as well: in 2024 he took the Senior Open Championship at Carnoustie in Scotland, the first senior major won by a Korean.

In course design he has joined the project for the Rock Valley Course, the eighteen-hole layout being built at Amber Hills Golf & Resort in Bac Giang Province, Vietnam, where he serves as senior design consultant. He works on it with Paul Albanese of the American design firm Albanese & Lutzke, and in November 2022 Choi travelled to Vietnam for the design. The Vietnamese golf press reports it as his first piece of course design. Amber Hills is planned as 36 holes, the Hillside Course as the first phase and the Rock Valley Course as the second.

His connection with Southeast Asia runs through the Iskandar Johor Open in Malaysia, which he won in 2009 for his fourth Asian Tour title. GoGolf does not at present list any course that Choi has worked on.

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Photo: Keith Allison / CC BY-SA 2.0