But when the Official World Golf Ranking revamped its system, the 33-year-old from
It paid off in a big way over the last two weeks.
Kim, who played his college golf at Arizona State, shot 64 in the final round to win the inaugural Magnit Challenge. A week later, Kim had a 64-64 weekend to win the Albertsons Boise Open. That moved him from No. 54 to No. 2 in the points standing, and he is assured of having a PGA Tour card next year.
“Definitely means the world to me. This is what I came here to do,” said Kim, who still lives in
Kim already has played PGA Tour Canada and the Challenge Tour in
“I went to eight different doctors both here and in
A month ago, his goal was to finish in the top 60 to at least secure a spot in the final stage of Q-school this year. Now he's trying to finish atop the Korn Ferry Tour points list, which would give him full access to PGA Tour events (except for
HOLD THOSE BALLOTS
For the last nine years, the Tour Championship would end and ballots were sent to players within the week for them to vote on player of the year and rookie of the year.
But while the FedEx Cup season is over, the year is not. Still on the schedule are seven tournaments, and while they only determine who keeps full cards and which 10 can play their way into
Ballots don't go out until after the year-ending RSM Classic in November.
It won't change the candidates for player of the year —
Scheffler would seem to have that locked up at 68.629 compared with 68.777 for
MAGIC NUMBERS
The others were
The previous mark was five sub-60 rounds in 2017, two of those in consecutive weeks on the PGA Tour (
Scores are coming down, as they've done for 100 years. And perhaps that's best illustrated by how often golf's “magic number” has been shot over the last decade.
From 1977 through 2013, there were 20 rounds of 59 or lower in professional golf worldwide. There have been 31 sub-60 rounds in the last 10 years.
BAD TIMING
“And now you'll forever be known as 30th in the FedEx Cup this season,” he said.
He was the No. 4 seed, had a bad week and finished in a tie for 18th. And he will forever be known this season as the Masters champion.
Besides, it's hard to shed a tear for the Spaniard on two fronts.
He's not the only one who had a bad week at East Lake that cost him a lot of money. It was only four years ago when
Plus, he was rewarded for his excellent play this year. Rahm was No. 1 in the FedEx Cup for the regular season, which earned him a
SPACING BUT STILL A SLOW PACE
One upside to the small fields in the FedEx Cup playoffs is that there wasn’t a lot of waiting around. PGA Tour rules officials long have argued slow play is mainly a product of large fields. This year, the field sizes went from 70 to 50 and 30.
That didn’t mean it went quicker. Twosomes still were approaching the four-hour range, and
“On some golf courses, especially this one where the greens are so fast and you’re ending up with 3- and 4-footers, it’s going to be slow,” Harman said. “It doesn’t take much to bottleneck a golf course, even in twosomes. And then with the consequences ... you get a big tournament, it’s going to happen. Unless we’re tapping in for par ... and no one taps in here.”
Speed of greens, walks from greens to tees and mostly large fields are a far bigger issue than players using AimPoint for their putts. And thus, the notion of slow play won’t go away.
“I don’t know what to do,” Harman said. “If you want golfers to play faster, the courses have to be easier. And then guys are going to shoot lower.”
DIVOTS
STAT OF THE WEEK
FINAL WORD
“We know the history. That’s all the past. We want to create new memories.” —
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