FedEx Cup: Tom Kim’s collapse leads to heartbreaking reality
With three holes to play, Tom Kim seemed to be well on his way to securing his ticket to Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado, the venue for next week’s BMW Championship – the second of three legs of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
After 15 holes, he was 5 under par for the championship, a round that included four birdies and no bogeys. He was among the top 50 players in the FedEx Cup rankings, the minimum requirement to qualify for the BMW Championship. Anyone who finishes in the top 50 also qualifies for the eight Signature events next year a great incentive for the participants of the FedEx St. Jude Championship to play well.
Kim was not at his best this week, fighting not for a top 50 spot, but for one. He seemed to have succeeded until he hit three sixes in a row on the last three holes. A bogey on the easy par 5 16th was a harbinger of what was to come. Kim hit a double on both the 17th and 18th to finish the tournament at 1 under par and 51st in the FedEx Cup. He found the water left of the fairway on the 72nd hole, which sealed his fate.
“I actually drove well. A bogey on hole 16 cost me a lot,” said Kim.
“Then I hit a good drive and then another really bad miss, everything is fine on the left and it’s off on the right. I knew I needed something special on the last shot and I needed to hit a good drive, but the wind shifted and started to pick up and it didn’t work out.”
Kim’s unfortunate graduation opened the door for Ryder Cup Captain Keegan Bradley managed to sneak in as the 50th player.
“This season has just been — it’s just been that way. I played really good golf and then had some tough finishes. I feel like 2024 really kicked my butt. But I’ve gotten so much better. I’ve fought really hard to get myself into this situation. I was over 90 before we had this run and it looks like I’m going to miss by a point. But it is what it is,” Kim said.
“I told myself before today that if I don’t play well, I’m really going to finish 51st. I told myself if that happens, I’ve done everything I can to get into the top 50 and hopefully give myself a shot at the Tour Championship. But I didn’t do that and I’m going to look forward to a really good offseason because I’m pretty tired.”
Kim has every reason to be tired. He played nine weeks in a row between the CJ Cup Byron Nelson and the Rocket Mortgage Classic, a stretch that included a second-place finish to Scottie Scheffler at the Travelers Championship. Last month, Kim finished 15th at the Scottish Open, missed the cut at Royal Troon and threatened the podium in Paris with a sole eighth place finish – all before this week in Memphis. It’s been a turbulent season for the talented 22-year-old.
“It’s been a long road. I think I just haven’t been mentally fit enough in the last few weeks,” Kim admitted.
“Fifty-one, 52, 50, it doesn’t matter. I’m just looking forward to resting and getting ready for next year.”
Kim will play for the international team at this year’s Presidents Cup, the tournament that made him hugely famous two years ago at Quail Hollow. But he sounded undecided about whether or not he will compete regularly this fall. The long, hard journey of crossing the country – and in some cases, oceans – seems to have caught up with him.
“This year has been really hard for me personally. I’ve gone through a lot of changes,” Kim said.
“I played good golf and probably had five bad rounds that cost me maybe a top five, a top 10, things like that. I finished the first and second rounds, I think, 5 over par on the last couple of holes. When things don’t go the way you want them to, things don’t go the way you want them to. It just goes to show that in a good year, it could have been 30th rather than 51st.”
Despite the defeat, which will sting for a long time, he remained positive. But rest assured, Kim will bounce back in 2025, perhaps with a big win.
Jack Milko is the golf editor at SB Nations Playing Through. Be sure to check out: @_Playthrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well as.