There are few people whose start to life on tour can be compared to Tiger Woods, but that is the speed at which Tom Kim has ascended the PGA Tour ranks. The South Korean’s route into the world of professional golf has been less conventional than most, but perhaps that is because he is a talent unlike most. Time will tell whether or not he is able to maintain his progress, but the omens are good. Not since Woods has a player won twice on the PGA Tour before their 21st birthday, a feat Kim actually achieved when he was younger than the 15-time Major Champion. His third victory arrived when he defended his Shriners Children’s Open title in 2023, making him the youngest player to make a successful defence of a title recognised by the PGA Tour since John McDermott in 1912. In the OWGR era, Kim’s win percentage has him behind only Woods, who was a phenom, a one-off, the like of whom it was likely we would never see again.
So the future is surely blinding for Kim. At the age of 21, ‘rising star’ would normally be the term for a promising up-and-comer, but to apply that to a golfer who has nearly cracked the top 10 would be
