Tom Kim Triumphs: Emotional Win at the Scottish Open

And let's talk about Tom Kim's win in the Genesis Sky show. How about it, dude? Bogey free 664 today wins by two shots over Minwoo Lee. It's his fourth PGA Tour win, but his first since 2023 and his 111th PGA Tour start. Think about that. 111 PGA Tour starts at the age of just turned 24 couple few weeks ago. I got a Justin Ray stat for you. Five players from outside the United States have won four plus times on the PGA Tour before the age of 25 in the last 40 years that list is Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Hideki Matsuyama, and now Tom Kim. And I've got two quotes. I want to read for you from Tom. But this is post round availability today after winning the trophy there. He's asked you're cheerful when you found out you'd won. Can you explain how you're feeling? And a couple quotes from just excerpt from this longer answer. He said it's surreal. I've had long days, long nights, early mornings. I just remember how I felt a lot of the times when I wasn't playing well, and it was difficult. Definitely appreciate this more now that I did a couple years ago. I thought about my family, all the people in my corner that have suffered with me and also celebrated with me and kind of remembering all those people really brought tears to my eyes. That's two straight weeks. We've seen a lot of emotion from the winner of Falling Chris God Rupp with John Deere. And then I thought there was another answer he gave that was interesting is he's asked you said you've had to eat a lot of humble pie over the last couple years and you've learned a lot about yourself. Can you give more insight into that? He said, I think one of the biggest things is that sometimes all the work that you put in might not get rewarded. It's very easy to think that you put in 12 hours every day and then you should be playing. Well doesn't really work like that. I'm more proud of the moments. I didn't give up and I had doubts and all those things instead of going the other way. I kept going. I'm more proud of that than holding a trophy. I think I want to zoom out, you know, in a couple minutes here and just talk about like what we're actually looking at with Tom Kim because you know, he had a down year. We were kind of writing him off in some ways, but he's only 24 years old. But the place I think that makes the most sense to start Smiley is just this year where we have a guy who made every major from 2023 to 2025. Then he did not play in the Masters or the PGA Championship this year then makes it to the US Open finishes third there. I'm wondering what differences you're seeing in his game of late. I know he's worked with Sean Foley. He's talked about how Sean's helped him become more mentally organized. What's showing up in Tom's game right now where you're like that's closer to the guy that we saw the burst out of the scene that could have been a generational talent. Yeah. Well, I mean this is Tom's a very very precise ball striker. Like when you go watch him play golf doesn't curve it a whole lot. You know, he's not going to be a player that's, you know, hitting all these different trajectories and all these curved shots. Like it's a very straight ball that he hits accurate and Sean Foley's helped obviously a ton in his game. When you go and look at you know, just just you got it's a hard 45th in the world man. Like Tom Kim was the guy that probably I'm not sure where his highest ranking was in the OWGR, but it had to be close to the top 25 would be my guess. He was entering 2024 on the back of that that that closes season in 2023 where he he at this event. The Scottish will be tied for six then he goes and ties for second at the Open Championship and he won that fall. The Shriners open repeat winner. So coming out of that year, he was 11th in the world. Wow. Yeah, I think we all were expecting a ton of wins from the guy, right? And I think a lot of times when you're a young player, you sometimes think that winning is easy and then so how quickly you either put too much pressure expectations upon yourself to get back in that situation to give yourself opportunities to But also as a player, you just want to be consistent. You want to have the, you know, not being worried about losing your car like just being in the signature events like he's struggled to be in the last couple years and just being on the outside looking in. So he's, you know, you know, being a mainstay in the majors and now not being in the majors to, you know, working his way into the US Open by by qualifying and finishing third. He was 66 heading into the week. They haven't updated his OWGR currently, but you have to think probably move somewhere inside the top 40 in the world, maybe top 35, which is a, you know, just think about not too many months ago. He was 145th.