Some of Asia‘s brightest golf prospects will pit themselves against one of the best players the region has produced when Korea’s K.J. Choi tees off on Thursday in the SK Telecom Open at Pinx Golf Club, Jeju Island.

Choi has blazed a trail around the world since turning professional in 1994, winning 19 tournaments -- eight on the US PGA Tour -- with his greatest triumph coming at the Players Championship in Florida last year.

“There are a lot of good young players emerging,” Choi was reported to have said on Wednesday at the pro-am competition according to a OneAsiaTour press release. “I know they all want to follow me and I think they have a great chance of success.”

Many of those prospects are emerging from South Korea.

Kim Bi-o registered an emphatic five-shot victory at last week‘s GS Caltex Maekyung Open and was followed home by fellow Korean and OneAsia members Ryu Hyun-woo, Kang Kyung-nam and Park Sang-hyun in second, third and fourth places respectively.

“There has been a great change of attitude which has helped the Korean players emerge,” Choi said.

“Before, we used to be very self critical and negative. We were very hard (on ourselves) when we made mistakes and doubted we could perform well.

”These days the players are more positive and there is a much more positive approach... and this is showing the rewards,“ Choi added.

By contrast to last week’s hilly and tree-lined course at Namseoul, the players face a flatter layout in Jeju where the wind can quickly lay waste to a scorecard.

”It is a different ball game,“ said New Zealander Gareth Paddison, ”If the wind blows, it‘s going to get very interesting. I think as a Kiwi I probably wouldn’t mind if it blows a bit harder than normal.“ (AFP)