These days, Phoenix International Airport in Arizona, USA is busy with planes taking off and landing. Tourists are flocking to Phoenix to see two major sporting events taking place nearby this week.
On the 13th, the Super Bowl, the final match of the National Football League (NFL), will be held. Kansas City and Philadelphia face off at State Farm Stadium in Glendale. With 63,400 seats, the stadium can accommodate up to 70,300 people.
On the 9th, the American Professional Golf (PGA) Tour WM Phoenix Open, one of the most beloved tournaments by golf fans, opens at TPC Scottsdale (par 71) in Scottsdale. Unlike other golf tournaments, this tournament allows drinking, cheering, and booing from the gallery while the game is in progress. For this reason, this tournament, also called the ‘golf liberation zone’, is visited by hundreds of thousands of fans every year. More than 700,000 galleries gathered last year as well.
This is the fourth time that the Phoenix Open and Super Bowl are held in the same week near Phoenix, after 1996, 2008 and 2015. Locals expect 1 million tourists to gather in the area this week.
The original popular Phoenix Open is attracting more attention this year because it has been upgraded to a ‘special event’ on the PGA Tour. The total prize money, which was 8.2 million dollars (approximately 10.3 billion won) last year, has more than doubled to 20 million dollars (approximately 25.1 billion won) this year. The winning prize alone is 3.6 million dollars (approximately 4.5 billion won). As the LIV Invitational Series (LIV), sponsored by Saudi Arabian capital, launched last year and players left, the PGA Tour designated 17 of the 47 tournaments (including the 4 majors) as “special events” in the 2022-2023 season and paid prize money. greatly increased
The Sentry Tournament of Champions held in January this year (total prize money of 15 million dollars) only allowed champions from the previous year to participate, so this Phoenix Open is actually the first special tournament this year. As a result, 18 of the top 20 players in the world ranking will participate in this event. Only Cameron Smith (4th, Australia), who moved to LIV, and Will Jaratoris (8th, USA), who took a break this week, are missing.
The player receiving the most attention is world number one Rory McIlroy (34, Northern Ireland). McIlroy, who won The CJ Cup last October, chose the Phoenix Open as his first PGA Tour event this year. McIlroy is still showing off his good shot sense by climbing to the top of the DP World Tour Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the 30th of last month.
World No. 2 Scotty Scheffler (27, USA) and No. 3 Jon Ram (29, Spain) are also candidates for the Phoenix Open. The defending champion of this event, Schaeffler, will challenge to return to world No. 1 with two consecutive victories. Ram, who graduated from Arizona State University and lives in this area, is also on a winning streak with two wins on the PGA Tour alone this season. 토토사이트
Four Korean players will participate: Lim Seong-jae (25), Kim Joo-hyung (21), Kim Si-woo (28), and Lee Gyeong-hun (32). In the Power Ranking, which predicts the winner of the tournament, Im Seong-jae ranked 9th and Kim Joo-hyung ranked 12th. Lee Kyung-hoon was the runner-up in this competition in 2021.
Kang Seong-hoon (36), who was going to participate in the tournament through Monday’s preliminaries, was unable to do so because the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro-Am ended a day late due to bad weather. Sunghoon Kang hurriedly arrived in Phoenix, but the plane landed 30 minutes before teeing off, so he couldn’t make it on time.
