Justin De Los Santos and Gunn Charoenkul will be on a mission when they return this week to compete in the ¥200,000,000 Casio World Open, the penultimate leg of the JGTO this season, which starts Thursday.
As De Los Santos of the Philippines makes his last-ditch bid to qualify for the season finale Golf Nippon JT Cup next week, Thailand’s Gunn is equally desperate for a good result at the Kochi Kuroshio Country Club to retain his full privileges for next season.
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With the champion’s purse of ¥40,000,000 at stake this week, there’s still everything to play for the two of them as they seek to make up for their absence over the last two weeks.
They did not make the field for the lucrative Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters and Dunlop Phoenix Tournament, which also boast prize funds of ¥200,000,000.
Fortunately, missing these big-money events didn’t hurt them too badly.
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De Los Santos is still very much in the running to make the top-30 cut in the Money Rankings for the JT Cup after dropping from 29th to 33rd with season earnings of ¥22,145,957.
He’s currently 2,800,000 shy of 30th-placed Tomoyasu Sugiyama (¥24,988,608) and needs a top-10 finish or better to overcome the deficit.
“I couldn’t get into Visa or Dunlop, so I really need to make this week’s Casio count since I’m on the bubble for JT Cup,” said De Los Santos, who recorded four top-10 finishes this season.
“I suppose I’ll need a good finish but I am confident I can do it.”
As for Gunn, he was ranked 64th after the completion of the Mynavi ABC Championship a fortnight ago.
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But without a tournament to play in the last two weeks to boost his season collection of ¥10,028,033, he dropped five spots to 69th.
Only the top-65 money leaders get to keep their full status.
The other international members in this week’s 108-man field hoping to remain or break into top-65 include 62nd-placed Han Lee of the United States, 70th-placed Michael Hendry of New Zealand and South Korean pair Dongkyu Jang (71st) and Younghan Song (74th
