22nd March|South Korea’s KJ Choi continued his recent run of good form by finishing 2nd in the USPGA Tour’s Transitions Championship at Innisbrook. Choi shot an impressive final round of 4 under par 67 to finish just 1 shot behind winner Jim Furyk of the United States.

The strong finish was doubly satisfying for the man known as “The Tank” as it moved him up from 75th to 47th in the Official World Golf Rankings. That means that as of now, Choi is in the field for the Augusta Masters which begins on the 8th of April. He needs to stay within the top 50 for the next couple of weeks to ensure his spot in the field at the first major of the 2010 season.

It has been a tough couple of years for Choi who has struggled with his game due to equipment changes as well as what he described as his own impatience with regards to his fitness regime:

“I had a lot of excess fat stored in my body,” said Choi. “But I think we tried to do it in such a short time that I lost more than what I needed to, and that threw my body off a little bit. I lost a lot of energy. Just compared to the reduction of the weight, the specs for my clubs, they didn’t feel right. So everything was kind of thrown off-balance.”

His  3rd place finish at last year’s Northern Trust Open at Riviera was pretty much the only bright spot in a season where he struggled enough to almost fall out of the top 100 ranked players in the world. Meanwhile, his compatriot Y.E Yang took the golf world by storm, not only winning his first PGA Tour event at the Honda Classic, but backing that up with an epic win over world number 1 Tiger Woods at the US PGA Championship to become Asia’s first Major Champion.

Plenty of motivation to get his game back on track.

Choi showed some signs of a resurgence towards the end of last year as he won the Iskandar Johor Open on the Asian Tour , where his pro golf journey began. He began the 2010 season in promising fashion with top 20 finishes at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Mayakoba Golf Classic. He also came close to winning the Maybank Malaysian Open on the Asian Tour, losing out to 18 year old compatriot Noh Seong-yul by a shot.

Choi’s coach Steve Bann has been predicting a solid performance from KJ over the last few weeks, having seen him perform really well in practice: “KJ was just rearing to go after a practice session before the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am” said Bann. “Something just clicked while we were working on his swing, and he said “that’s it, lets go play”". “He couldn’t wait for the tournament to start”. For the record, Choi finished T21 at that event after sharing the lead at one point in the opening round.

Moving forward, KJ is just looking to continue to trust his skills and using Pure Golf Training concepts such as “The Confidence Cycle” to believe in his ability to perform under pressure, when it counts. Of course, there is no bigger test of nerves than a major championship, and Choi admits it has been in the back of his mind to continue his run of playing in every Masters tournament since 2002, with a 3rd place finish being his best (in 2004).

“When I started out this year, I didn’t really think about it that much, but obviously it was in my mind,” said Choi. “I just said to myself to take it week-by-week and just try my best. To hear that this finish puts me in 47th in the world, it’s actually better than what I thought I would be at this point. All I can say is I will try my best next week to maintain or better that position.”

Pure Golf Training would like to congratulate KJ Choi on a wonderful performance and wish him the best of luck in the coming weeks. Hope to see you at The Masters KJ!

P.S Here is a link to an audio interview of KJ after the Transitions Championship:

A big thanks to Pure Golf Blog for this content:

A big thanks to Pure Golf Blog for the following content:

Shin Ae finished T12th at +2 for the week after rounds of 78, 70, 75 and 71 at the par 73 Commonwealth GC layout. Playing in windy Melbourne conditions on sand belt golf courses such as Commonwealth pust a premium on being able to control your ball flight, and that was the focus of Shin Ae’s practice session with coach Steve Bann prior to the tournament.

She made the cut at the ANZ Ladies Masters in Queensland the previous week, however she finished well behind the winner Karrie Webb, and was not happy with the way she was hitting the golf ball in the wind.

Below you will find the latest installment of our Fly on the Wall video series. What you will see in the following video is how she discussed this problem with Steve Bann and how they worked to help her control the trajectory of her golf shots by simply adjusting her setup. She was making the mistake of putting the ball back in her stance and then trying to force the ball low with a change in her golf swing. This was causing her a few problems in controlling her distance.

Steve got her to get back to simplifying the process by simply allowing an adjustment in ball position to change the trajectory while using her normal golf swing. The result was that she averaged nearly 70% in greens in regulation for the week which went a long way towards helping her get a top-12 finish.

You will also see how a Tour Pro works out how far they hit a club by calculating carry distance + roll distance. In this case, the hybrid Shin Ae is hitting usually carries 148-150 yards for her, while for this week, as her caddy points out, they were expecting to get about 5-7 meters of roll with that club once the ball lands on the green. So this club would be perfect for a total distance of about 157 to the flag.

Alright, enough talk…time for you to see the action. Enjoy being a fly on the wall!

Welcome to the latest episode of our Fly on the Wall Series, where we eavesdrop on PGA Tour coach Steve Bann as he works with some of his professional clients.

In this episode, Steve is working with LPGA Tour player Hee Young Park on her pitching and chipping. Steve is working to help simplify Hee Young’s technique so she can “free it up” and just concentrate on where she wants to land the golf ball. This is a money shot- having a good pitching game will help you make a bunch of birdies on par 5’s and short par 4’s while also helping you save par on long par 4’s or when you get into trouble off the tee. Enjoy!: