This Fortinet contender last won 9 years ago. Then duty called

After two rounds on the Fortinet Championship, Sahith Theegala is tied with South Korea’s S.H. Kim for the lead.

You might imagine the subsequent largest story is Justin Thomas, lastly discovering type two weeks earlier than the Ryder Cup, and placing collectively rounds of 69 to 67 to leap into competition in a tie for sixth at eight beneath.

However, it’s the person who sits in solo third because the weekend begins who could be the most stunning.

Sangmoon Bae, Kim’s fellow countryman and finest good friend, is in competition to win on the PGA Tour for the primary time in eight years.

Before the present crop of Korean stars comparable to Tom Kim, Sungjae Im, Si Woo Kim and extra, Bae was the subsequent huge factor for males’s Korean golf.

He won the 2013 HP Byron Nelson Championship after which had a banner 12 months in 2014-15 when he won the Frys.com Open (now the Fortinet Championship) and earned a spot on the International Presidents Cup staff.

But then his profession hit an enormous velocity bump within the type of required navy service for all South Korean males between the ages of 18 and 35. At 29, seemingly at the beginning of the height of his profession, Bae returned to South Korea after the Presidents Cup for a two-year conscription.

He tried within the courts to obtain an exemption, however the one methods have been to medal within the Olympics or earn a gold medal within the Asian Games. With the Olympics nonetheless a 12 months away from reintroducing golf as a sport, Bae was compelled to place his PGA Tour profession on pause.

Luckily, the PGA Tour added a “mandatory obligation” exemption beneath the foremost medical and household disaster exemption. He would have a sure variety of begins when he returned to the PGA Tour in 2017-18 to re-earn his standing.

Understandably, Bae was rustly after his return to the Tour, ending higher than T45 simply as soon as and lacking 11 cuts in 17 occasions. He misplaced his PGA Tour card and needed to regain it by way of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.

The subsequent 5 years on the PGA Tour have been equally unkind to Bae and he entered this week’s Fortinet Championship enjoying the season beneath a previous winner exemption with low standing. Making his first begin because the Barbasol Championship in July, Bae is 226th on the FedEx Cup factors listing.

But returning to the positioning of his last PGA Tour victory, the now 37-year-old appears to have discovered one thing together with his ball-striking.

“I struggled the last couple years. Then after Barbasol I practiced at home. I was working on ball flight, not the swing,” Bae mentioned after a second-round 66. “So I think that that was my problem the last couple years… So I figure out how the ball goes and then just focus on my like impact and the follow-through and ball flight. That makes probably just the easier game plan.”

Bae’s journey again to the highest web page of a PGA Tour leaderboard serves as a cautious reminder of what awaits his youthful Korean counterparts. While Okay.J. Choi, who won 8 occasions in his PGA Tour profession, and Y.E. Yang, the primary Asian participant to win a significant, each accomplished their service earlier than starting their careers, S.H. Kim, Tom Kim, Sungjae Im and Si Woo Kim have all but to finish their service.

Jack Hirsh

Golf.com Editor

Jack Hirsh is an assistant editor at GOLF. A Pennsylvania native, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State University, incomes levels in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his highschool golf staff and lately returned to this system to function head coach. Jack additionally nonetheless *tries* to stay aggressive in native amateurs. Before becoming a member of GOLF, Jack spent two years working at a TV station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a Multimedia Journalist/reporter, but additionally producing, anchoring and even presenting the climate. He might be reached at jack.hirsh@golf.com.