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By Brett Avery
PGATOUR.COM Contributor

K.J. Choi knows the sadness of being 31st on the list when a party has room for 30.

But he also knows the joy that comes with winning a PGA TOUR title.

The fact that he experienced both conditions within the same week is what a novelist would call a plot twist.

Choi was bumped at the last minute from the 2002 World Golf Championships-American Express Championship. He expected to remain in the PGA TOUR money list's top 30 and return from Korea, where he'd spent a few weeks off from competition, with an exemption to the shindig at Mount Juliet Estate in Kilkenny, Ireland.

Instead he fell just far enough in earnings to wind up ineligible for the World Golf Championships event. So he changed his itinerary and ventured to Florida, where he won the PODS Championship by seven shots over Glen Day.

K.J. Choi is very comfortable in Tampa Bay. (Reuters/WireImage)

"Things happen for a reason," Choi said through an interpreter after posting the season's widest victory margin. "I was not disappointed. It happened because it happened. The only alternative was to come play this tournament. Maybe it was lucky that it happened."

In fact, that week Choi followed the same game plan as Tiger Woods, the winner in Ireland. Both stormed to 18-hole leads -- in Choi's case a 63 that smashed the tournament and course records -- and never surrendered the advantage (Woods won by one).

It was Choi's second TOUR victory in less than five months, after winning the Compaq Classic of New Orleans (now known as the Zurich Classic) by four strokes over Dudley Hart and Geoff Ogilvy.

One of three multiple winners in he U.S. that season -- and one of 17 first-time champs -- Choi also established himself as the TOUR's fourth Asian winner (Isao Aoki, Shigeki Maruyama and Chen Tze-Chung) and inaugural South Korean.

The culminating events of Choi's third season on TOUR may have seemed meteoric to the casual observer. But the man known back home as Kyung-Ju was merely completing a nearly decade-long climb through the professional game's hierarchy.

Choi turned pro in 1994, won the 1996 Korean Open and then shifted to Japan for 1999. He captured two of his first three starts, the rain-shortened Kirin Open in a playoff and the Ube Kosan Open, and wound up 21st on its Order of Merit.

Suitably encouraged he took a shot later that year at the U.S. Qualifying Tournament. He placed 35th and become the first Korean on TOUR, heady news at a time when 1998 U.S. Women's Open champ Se Ri Pak and others were making an imprint on the LPGA.

Unlike his assimilation in Japan, though, Choi struggled in his U.S. transition. It showed as he missed 14 of 30 cuts and cracked the top 10 only at the late-season Air Canada Championship, where he shot four 68s.

So he cycled through Q-school again to gain a 2001 card and in his second go-round produced five top-10s. They included shares of fifth in his season-opener (Touchstone Energy Tucson Open) and sixth in the season-ender (Southern Farm Bureau Classic).

Choi kept climbing in 2002, again beginning with a strong showing (tie for seventh in the Sony Open in Hawaii). He then capped a run of three spring tournaments in contention with his New Orleans victory.

The next few months were a whirlwind: intensified media attention both in the U.S. and Asia, the grind of trying to play six out of the next seven weeks, adding the year's last three majors to his schedule.

By the end of August, Choi was more than ready for a month in Korea.

When he missed the field in Ireland, a refreshed Choi showed he was more than ready for competition, too.

Choi pretty much decided things at the Westin Innisbrook Resort in the first 36 holes, although it didn't seem that way initially. He followed his 63 with a three-footer at the 18th to close out a 68 Friday, a round harder than it looked despite providing a two-stroke cushion over Rod Pampling.

"There's always one bad round out of four," Choi said. "So I got the bad one out of the way. You can never have four perfect rounds, so with the bad one out of the way I am looking forward to the weekend."

Another 68 put him five ahead when rookie Pat Perez soured a two-eagle 70 with a pair of bogeys. Choi had led by seven at one point Saturday but three-putted the short 15th after missing the green.

Choi was nervous Saturday night, sensing the expectations of going for his second victory of the season. The next day he was greeted at the first tee by 10 representatives of the Korean news media after they scrambled to Tampa from New York and Washington to chronicle his round.

"It will have a big impact in Korea, because it will prove Koreans can make it on the PGA TOUR," Choi said. "It will be a confidence booster for not only myself but the country."

Since then Choi has enlarged his own U.S. footprint. His first of three opportunities to represent his nation in the World Cup arrived in 2002. He won on the European Tour (Linde German Masters) in 2003 and landed a spot on the International squad in the famous Presidents Cup tie in South Africa.

The following spring he went deep into the 2004 Masters before placing third to Phil Mickelson. Since then he's added two victories back in Korea and two titles in the U.S.: the 2005 Chrysler Classic of Greensboro and 2006 Chrysler Championship.

PS: That last one has a new name. It's now the PODS Championship, which begins Thursday at Innisbrook.

Guess whose name is at the top of the guest list for this week?