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The Asian Tour returns to South Korea this week for the Shinhan Donghae Open, and for Taichi Kho it will be a case of hoping that third time’s a charm.

Kho has yet to make a cut in his two visits to the country this season, narrowly missing out at the Caltex Maekyung Open in May, before struggling in the Korean Open six weeks later.

At the national championship the Hongkonger finished on 16-over-par after rounds of 80 and 78, although the fact the cut was five-over gives some indication of how tough conditions were at Woo Jeong Hills Country Club that week.

Those two difficult events came in the middle of a run of five tournaments, stretching back to a maiden Asian Tour win in the World City Championship in March, when he did not feature at the weekend.

Kho broke that streak at the International Series England tournament last month with a tie for ninth, following it up with another Sunday finish at the St Andrews Bay Championship.

“At the end of the day, if you play good golf you’ll get rewarded for it,” Kho said. “I’m not concerned about ‘oh, I didn’t play well in Korea before’, it’s more, I know what to expect this time in terms of the preparation, so I’ll do a better job of scouting out the course, having all my lines before I go out.

“Other than that I’m not worried about playing in Korea because I’ll play a lot of courses in my career that I won’t necessarily like, I’ll just have to find a way to play well on them.”

This week’s tournament, which last year was held in Japan for the first time, is jointly sanctioned by the Asian Tour, the Korean Tour and the Japan Golf Organisation Tour, with each getting 40 spots in the 138-man field.

Also playing are the likes of Miguel Tabuena, Kieran Vincent, Thai Sadom Kaewkanjana, Brendan Jones and Travis Smyth, all of whom are high up on the Asian Tour’s order of merit.

Past champions Richard Lee and Gaganjeet Bhullar will also fancy their chances this week, as will South Korea’s Bio Kim, who won the LX Championship on his tour last week.

Kho will rack up the airmiles over the next few weeks, travelling between South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Hangzhou.

After this week he is back in Hong Kong to compete alongside Asian Games teammates Matthew Cheung, Tiffany Chan and Arianna Lau in a mini-team event against Singapore.

The EFG Young Athletes Foundation International Golf Challenge will be a Ryder Cup-style tournament, featuring four-ball, foursomes and singles matches over the course of two days at Hong Kong Golf Club.

Singapore will be represented by James Leow, Ryan Ang, Cheng Xington and Aloysa Margiela Atienza for the fundraiser on September 13 and 14.

Kho and Cheung are then expected to play in the Yeangder TPC in New Taipei City between September 24 and 27, before the Asian Games golf begins the following week.

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