<Men's Golf> Kensei Hirata wins the Shinhan Donghae Open 2024 for the second consecutive tournament... He also reveals his connection with Korea

Kensei Hirata, who started the first round in 57th place and the second round in 22nd place, won the 1st round at Club 72 Country Club in Young Jongdo, Incheon on the 8th.
At the "Shinhan Donghae Open 2024" (total prize money 1.4 billion won/150.78 million yen) held at the Ocean Course of the Shinhan Donghae Golf Club, he finished 22 under par and finished 5th in his career.
Hirata became the 12th player of a foreign nationality to win the Shinhan Donghae Open and the 4th player of a Japanese nationality to do so.
Hirata, who won the tournament, received 252 million won (about 26.9 million yen) in prize money, a five-year seed on the KPGA Tour, and two-year seeds on the Asian Tour and Japan Tour.
The "Korean Donghae Open" is a tournament jointly organized by the Korean Tour, the Asian Tour, and the Japanese Tour. With this victory, Hirata has risen to the top of the JGTO's prize money rankings this year.
He rose to first place in the King. Travis Smythe (Australia) in second place made a strong comeback with a score of 8 under par in the first nine holes, but Hirata recorded pars in all the last nine holes and steadily improved his lead.
Kim Min-Gyu (23) was the winner. Kim Min-Gyu (23) was the top Korean player with Exclusive 4th place. Among the 12 top 10 players, the most were Japanese with 7, and Korean with 2.
Hirata, who will make his JGTO debut in 2022, has been on the rise in Japan recently. He also won the Fujisan KEI Classic, the tournament just before participating in this tournament. He has won two tournaments in a row, and this season alone
He won his third title at the 2016 World Tour. His total number of individual victories is five. He has been in the top 10 in his last five tournaments and qualified for the tournament in the previous season.
At the press conference that day, Hirata, who became a professional golfer thanks to his maternal uncle who loves golf, said, "When I was young, I was inspired by Ryo Ishikawa.
I want to become a great player like Shinhan Donghae. I don't have any specific plans, but I want to try out various tours in the future.
I want to definitely play in the Open. I also want to try out for the PGA Tour, which is my dream stage, one day," he said, before going on to talk about his unexpected connection with Korea.
Hirata said, "This is the first time I'm officially talking about this. My grandparents were born in Korea.
I first lived in Korea and then in Japan, so I'm overwhelmed with emotion when I won the tournament held in Korea."