In the last few years, Byeong Hun An has seen a lot. Struggling in the Challenge Tour, cutting through the clutter to earn his PGA Tour card, and then losing it, An has been at the peak before crashing to the floor. He went back to the grassroots— Korn Ferry Tour—and eventually secured his card again. In between these roller-coaster journeys, the South Korean pro has also served a three-month ban.

All this experience has humbled him, and the PGA Tour pro is grateful for the opportunity. Byeong Hun An, who is in the third spot going to the final round of the $20M purse Sentry, was asked, “Is there a different appreciation for being up here?” This is what the 32-year-old had to say.

Byeong Hun An reflects on his journey

The Seoul native frankly admitted in the media interaction that the attitude “changes a little bit,” after going through it all. Byeong Hun An left no stone unturned when he lost his Tour card. The South Korean pro went to the other side of the Atlantic and notched a victory in the 2015 BMW PGA Championship.

But he had to take the Korn Ferry Tour route to come back to the PGA Tour again. Recounting that episode, An said, “It happens to everybody, it just happened to me that bad year. Lost my card.” Fortunately, for him, it was a regular season, not the prolonged COVID-19 one or the transitional 2022-23 period, which went on over a year. An is grateful that he “lost it at a good time, it was only a regular season.”

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This is also why the 30-year-old feels he “never really had the downs of it.” Sure Challenge Tour days were a grind. But since then, “every year was a little better, a little better.” His new swing perhaps improved his form as An reveals he “decided to go with a swing change and that was a good learning point, I guess.”

The South Korean netted eight top-ten finishes last season, coming in a close second at the Wyndham Championship in June. But his fast ride was stopped short, because of a doping violation.

A strange suspension threw a spanner in An’s plans

Probably, An didn’t think it through before buying cough syrup in a local supermarket in Seoul. One of the ingredients in the medicine fell under the banned item list under WADA. When a doping test revealed this, Monahan suspended the South Korean pro for three months for violating the PED policy.

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That left An ineligible to tee up for the FedEx Fall tournaments. By the time his suspension was over, only the Grant Thornton Invitational was left on the calendar. So, Sentry marks his first PGAT outing after the BMW Championship in August. “Just like out here, I look at the ocean, I mean, where else could I be, right?” Byeong Hun An is thankful for the opportunity to play at the Maui event.  

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