Oh somewhat resembles Korean figure skating legend
Yu Na Kim, and so she earned the nickname 'the Yu Na Kim of golf'.
She quickly became a popular player on tour, but her game took a
little longer to come around. In 2014, she only finished 64th on
the money list, with a pair of ninth place finishes her best results.
She improved markedly in 2015. She finished 17th
on the money list that season, collecting 8 top tens. She ended
the season with a bang, winning her first title at the ADT-Caps,
the year's penultimate event.
Oh improved yet again in 2016, climbing to 12th
on the year ending money list and notching her second career win
at the BC Card Ladies Cup. She also had a runner-up finish and 8
total top tens.
Oh also played at the ING Champions team event on
the KLPGA team. She and Jeong Eun Lee 6 barely lost to the LPGA
team of So Yeon Ryu and Q Baek one up. She lost again to So Yeon
Ryu and Sei Young Kim when teamed with Ji Hyun Kim; that score was
3 & 1. Sei Young beat Oh in the singles 3 & 2.
Ji Hyun had a breakout season on the KLPGA in 2017.
For the first time in her career, she managed two wins in a season:
she repeated at the BC Card, and also won the Hanwha Classic, one
of the tour's five Majors. In all, she achieved 9 top tens during
the season, including a runner-up and two 4th places added to her
two wins. She made 746 million won, finishing third on the season
money list.
Oh also played on the KLPGA team at the Kowa Queens.
She won her singles match against Lalai Anai 1 up, and teamed with
Jin Young Ko for a team win. She lost her other team match 1 down
when teamed with Ji Hyun Kim.
2018 proved to be an even better season for the
surging Ji Hyun Oh. For the first few months of the year, she posted
a bunch of top finishes, but wins eluded her. She finally broke
through in a huge way, winning the Korea Women's Open in June. She
slaughtered the field by 8 shots, breaking the record for lowest
score in that tournament that had been previously held by LPGA star
In Gee Chun. At that point, she led the money list and Player of
the Year race in 2018, and was third in scoring average.
Oh managed a second win at the Samdasoo Masters
in August, but she cooled off after that. Still, it was a fantastic
season. She finished third on the money list with 833 million won
earned, second in Player of the Year standings, and third in scoring
average. She had 14 top tens, including the two wins, three runner
ups and two thirds.
Ji Hyun played at the OrangeLife Champions event
for the KLPGA team. She paired with Hye Jin Choi in a narrow loss
against LPGA superstars So Yeon Ryu and Inbee Park, then paired
with Ji Hyun Kim in another narrow loss against In Gee Chun and
Jenny Shin. She also lost the singles against Eun Hee Ji. The LPGA
won the title 13-11.
Ji Hyun played her first career LPGA event in America
early in 2019 at the Kia Classic, but she missed the cut.
Ji Hyun really struggled in 2019 for the first time
in her career. It was a combination of a persistent ankle injury
and a bit of overconfidence, but she went the entire year without
a win. She only made 160 million won all year, good for just 35th
on the money list. She had only three top tens, her best a fifth
place in her sponsor's event, the KB Financial Star Championship.
In 2020, the whole world was rocked by the Covid-19
pandemic. The LPGA and KLPGA tours canceled and postponed many tournaments.
Ji Hyun improved from 2019, but still did not play at her usual
level. In 2020, she earned 203 million won and finished 19th on
the money list. Her best results came early: a third place at the
Lotte Cantata, and a fourth at the Korea Women's Open, where most
of the people who finished ahead of her were regulars from the LPGA
tour who had decided to stay in Korea and play on the KLPGA during
the pandemic. Those were in fact her only top tens of the year.
Ji Hyun also played for the KLPGA team at the annual
KLPGA/LPGA team event, the OrangeLife Champions Trophy. She teamed
with Ye Rim Choi to tie Ha Neul Kim and MJ Hur, and wiped out the
LPGA's team captain Jiyai Shin in singles, 5 & 4. The KLPGA
won the event 10.5 to 7.5.
Ji Hyun started 2021 with a terrible streak of missed
cuts, five in a row. But she figured things out after that, and
after several top 20s, she notched her first top ten, a third, at
the Daebo HausD Open in July. Later in the month she played the
Samdasoo, the place where she had had her most recent win in 2018.
Amazingly, she won it again, holding on to the lead most of the
week and claiming a three shot win in the end. This was her 7th
career victory.
Later in the year, she also had her best ever LPGA
finish when she grabbed a tie for 10th at the BMW Championship,
thanks to a final round 65. In the end she had a result much like
2020: she finished 16th on the money list with earnings of 452 million
won. She had six top tens.
Ji Hyun also made some news when she announced that
she was in a relationship with PGA tour star Si Woo Kim. This is
the first time I can remember when two big Korean golf stars hooked
up. They have implied that they will get engaged soon. Will this
encourage Ji Hyun to come to the States to be nearer to her beau?
Stay tuned!
In March, 2022, Ji Hyun competed at a team event
sponsored by SBI. Teamed with Se Lin Hyun, they lost in the semis
and tied their consolation match for a tie for third result.
Ji Hyun was not able to win on tour in 2022, but
otherwise it was a decent year. She earned nearly 423 million won,
20th on the money list. She had one second, two fourths and two
fifths among her nine top tens.
In December, she married Si Woo Kim. Just a few
weeks later, Kim and Oh went to Honolulu, where Ji Hyun got to watch
her husband win the PGA's Sony Open. Marriage seems to agree with
him!
The fate of Ji Hyun's golf career seemed to be up
in the air. She has shown that she intends to travel with Si Woo
for the time being, but she also seems to be working on her game.
One place she went with him was the Masters, where she participated
in the par 3 competition and hit her tee shot closer than his. This
electrified Twitter golf fans, who had no idea that Kim's wife had
such great golf skills.
Any thought that she might soon return to golf was
quashed when she announced that she was pregnant with their first
child. She had the baby early in 2024, so for the moment at least
she will be focusing on being a mommy. It looks like she might not
be intending to return to the game, but she is still young so for
the moment it is not clear.
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