The Start of the 2015-16 PGA TOUR Season Is a Sad Reminder for Sangmoon Bae

After a mini-offseason, the PGA TOUR season is back in action. The 2015-16 season gets underway this week with the first tournament of the season being the Frys.com Open. The field will be headlined by Rory McIlroy, but will be missing the defending champion.

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Sangmoon Bae was the winner of the Frys.com last season, but will be unable to defend his title this week. The 29-year-old South Korean is required to go through a two-year mandatory military service. South Korea enforces a two-year military service for men between the ages of 18 and 35, no matter how big of a celebrity you may be.

The Presidents Cup was the last competitive event we will see Bae participate in for the next two years until he returns to the TOUR. He will retain his status as a PGA TOUR winner.

It has to be difficult to suddenly stop the game you love when you’re at the peak of your career, but we can learn something from the way Bae has handled himself.

Bae was refused by the Daegu District Court after an unsuccessful appeal to extend his stay overseas to delay his military service,. While most would be upset by this decision, Sangmoon took the higher ground and said he will “humbly accept” the court’s ruling.

The court acknowledged that Bae would lose a significant amount financially when he takes a leave of absence, but said they have to stand their grounds to be fair to other citizens of the country.

"“For everyone facing conscription, dreams are all precious,” the court said. “If an athlete is allowed to arbitrarily schedule when he’d enter the military because he’d lose more money than others, then it would damage the idea of fairness in conscription and also the morale among the troops.”"

Bae told YonHap News:

"“I’d like to apologize to my fans for causing them concerns,” Bae said  “I decided that I can mature further as a golfer by returning home as soon as I can and complete my mandatory military service.”"

A lot of things happen in life that are beyond our control. It’s how you handle yourself in those situations that defines you as a person. Sangmoon Bae is a prime example of this.

He leaves the game of golf as 92nd on the Official World Golf Ranking, but who knows what he’ll be down to by the time he returns to the course. It’s hard to watch Bae quit cold turkey especially after the season he’s had. He won the first tournament of the season and hit a rough patch after learning about his military service, but turned it on at the end a the season by qualifying for the TOUR Championship.

He won’t be able to play while on his military hiatus, so it will certainly be a setback in his golfing career. Other golfers have had to go through the same thing. K.J. Choi and Y.E. Yang are two other South Korean golfers to go through the military service. Ernie Els and Retief Goosen have done the same for their home country of South America.

Bae went out in heartbreaking fashion at the Presidents Cup this past week. Playing in the final singles match of Day 4, Bae needed to win the final hole to force a tie with Team USA. Sangmoon stepped up to chip his third shot and chunked it, ultimately  handing the Cup over to the Americans for a ninth time. His reaction was painful to watch:

We wish Sangmoon Bae the best and look forward to seeing him back on the course in a couple of years.

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