Lee Seung-hyun (32, NH Investment & Securities), who played an active part in the Korea Women’s Professional Golf (KLPGA) tour, played the final round of the NH Investment & Securities Ladies Championship (par 72) held at Suwon Country Club on the 14th. An official retirement ceremony was held prior to the awards ceremony.
At the retirement ceremony, NH Investment & Securities CEO Jung Young-chae handed over a retirement commemorative ‘golden putter’ with a head made of pure gold, and Lee Seung-hyun received warm applause from many colleagues and fans and put an end to his splendid career as a player.
After debuting on the KLPGA regular tour in 2010, Lee Seung-hyun maintained a full seed on the regular tour for 12 years until 2021, and is a KLPGA player with a total of 7 wins, including 2 major wins. He was able to extend the seed rights he had previously with pregnancy in 2021 and childbirth in 2022, but decided to retire last season while preparing for a second life.
Since his debut, Lee Seung-hyun has been consistently ranked within the 30th place in the KLPGA money list for 9 consecutive years until 2018 and within the 5th place in average putting, earning the nickname ‘God of Putting’. In particular, in the 2017 KLPGA major tournament Hite Jinro Championship, he won the most strokes by 9 strokes and in the 2018 KLPGA S-OIL Championship, he set a record of winning the 5th ‘no-bogey’ play in the history of the KLPGA Tour, gaining great popularity from fans.
On the other hand, Lee Seung-hyun has been spreading good influence through various donation activities, such as joining the ‘Honor Society’, which donated more than 100 million won to the Community Chest of Korea (Fruit of Love토스카지노).
An official from NH Investment & Securities, who has been with Lee Seung-hyun as the main sponsor for 9 years from 2013 to 2021, said, “We prepared this retirement ceremony as a token of gratitude for being active as a member of the team.” In addition, with the meaning of cheering for the second life, we produced and prepared a golden putter to commemorate the retirement of professional Lee Seung-hyun, the ‘god of putting’.”
Lee Seung-hyun said, “I am deeply grateful to NH Investment & Securities for providing strong support for my tour life. I thought a lot about retirement while taking a break from the tour due to childbirth early last year. He also said, “I received a lot of support and great love during my career as a player. I want to work on nurturing juniors so that I can give them back to my juniors.”
Immediately after his birth last year, Lee Seung-hyun opened the ‘Lee Seung-hyun Golf Studio’ in Yangjae-dong, Seoul in June at the request of many professional players around him for putting lessons, and has been teaching junior players putting skills. Accordingly, KLPGA Kim Su-ji (27, Dongbu Construction) and Hong Ji-won (23, Yojin Construction) expressed their gratitude for Lee’s guidance in the winning interview recorded after the lesson.
Taking this retirement ceremony as an opportunity, Lee Seung-hyun plans to broaden his range of activities as a professional putting coach by passing on his various mental experiences and technical know-how from his tour to his juniors.