The pair play their first tournament as fully exempt OneAsia members at the U.S. $1 million Enjoy Jakarta Indonesia PGA Championship, presented by Indonesia Port Corporation, at Damai Indah Golf’s Bumi Serpon Damai course from March 27 - 30, but will also take on the leading players from the Land of the Rising Sun as the event is fully co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour Organization.
“I feel great,” said 22-year-old American Yi, who survived a tense final round at Q-School in California last month to win by a stroke and book his place in all OneAsia’s minimum one million dollar events for 2014.
“I’m excited and nervous at the same time, but I just want to take it all in, learn as much as I can and just be in the moment.”
“This is what we play for,” said newly minted Australian Lee, 25, after dominating Q-School in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia at the weekend.
“I desperately wanted to play in Indonesia, so I am absolutely happy that I managed to do it.”
The Enjoy Jakarta Indonesia PGA Championship, presented by Indonesia Port Corporation, boasts one of the classiest fields ever assembled in the world’s fourth most populous nation, with Major winners Y. E. Yang and John Daly the headline acts.
The winner of every OneAsia Order of Merit since the tour launched in 2009 will be present, as well as an equally strong contingent from Japan that includes such luminaries as Hiroyuki Fujita, Yuta Ikeda and Yoshinori Fujimoto.
“I haven’t played in anything this big before as I only turned pro about a year ago,” said Yi, who was born in California to parents who emigrated from Korea.
“My biggest professional events (so far) would be the the California State Open and Nevada Open — neither of which I played well in.”
Korean-born Lee, in contrast, has played several big events before but has been confined to Australia for the past year while qualifying for citizenship, which came through just last month.
Both came to golf after first trying their hand at other sports — Yi played basketball while the stocky Lee was a skater.
“I knew I couldn’t play basketball (professionally) … I was too short,” said Yi, “but I reckoned with golf, if you had a bit of talent and worked hard enough, I could, you know, make some noise.”
“I worked hard at skating,” said Lee, “but it wasn’t enough. There were better skaters in my age group, so I thought it better to try something else.”
With the encouragement of their parents, their golf careers took off at opposite ends of the earth — Yi in California and Lee in Australia — but they’ll come together in Jakarta and see where the future takes them.
“This season my goal is obviously to keep my card, but also to see what it takes to be a touring professional and to learn the ropes in events as big as those on OneAsia,” said Yi, who boasts a stud earring and punk hairstyle.
For Lee, a professional for a lot longer, he wants to shine particularly in the top co-sanctioned events such as Indonesia, the Thailand Open and next month’s Volvo China Open, which also has the European Tour’s imprimatur.
“I actually didn’t realise that winning here would get me into China until a mate texted me saying he wanted to caddie for me,” he said after his weekend Q-School win.
“My wife was nearly in tears.”
Both will try to avoid the fate of last year’s Q-School winners who struggled after dominating qualification.
American-Filipino Eric Mina, who triumphed in California, and Japan’s Akinori Tani, the Malaysia winner, made just three cuts each to finish 62nd and 77th on the money list respectively, limiting their status for 2014.
OneAsia was founded in 2009 by the China Golf Association, the Korea Golf Tour, the Korea Golf Association and the PGA of Australia.
It has since doubled in size, and the tour's elite suite of tournaments now includes the national Opens of Australia, China, Korea and Thailand -- as well as numerous other prestigious events.
The Enjoy Jakarta Indonesia PGA Championship, presented by Indonesia Port Corporation promises to be fantastic start to another great season on both tours and will be broadcast around the world — and streamed live outside Asia — to hundreds of millions of homes, clubs and other venues.
Enjoy Jakarta is the capital province’s tourism portal, while the Indonesia Port Corporation is a parastatal responsible for the country’s vast harbor and ship-berthing facilities scattered across the archipelago of around 18,000 islands and serving the world’s fourth most populous nation.
The tournament will be promoted by World Sport Group (WSG) for a third time, with the company drawing on their vast experience in sponsorship, media and event management to ensure an outstanding event is staged.
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