It was November 2019 that Joohyung Kim, merely 17, announced his arrival on the big stage with his breakthrough win on the Asian Tour at the Panasonic Open India. Since then, his rise has been rapid, considering that COVID intervened, and on Sunday Kim fulfilled what has been a childhood dream, winning on the PGA Tour.
Excerpts from an interview:
We would like to introduce the 2022 Wyndham Championship winner, (Joohyung) ‘Tom’ Kim, into the media center. Tom, from a quadruple bogey first hole of the week to the winner’s circle, if we can get some comments on the journey that you’ve been through this week.
Related: With series of firsts, Wyndham C’ship a life-changer for Joohyung Kim
Kim: Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, I’ve never won a golf tournament starting with a quad. It’s 24 strokes later and here we are. I played great this week. It was hard to stay in the moment in the final round just knowing that I was so close, but I just never let my guard
down until I holed that putt on 18. Just it’s been a crazy week with rain delays. I was worried, I was anxious actually playing my last three holes knowing that maybe we’re not going to finish. I did not want a three-, four-shot lead needing to sit down for three hours or to come back tomorrow, so I’m glad I was able to finish. And yeah, here we are.
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You go from no status on the PGA Tour to special temporary membership after The Open to then wrapping up your card after Detroit last week, and now a full member. Can you take us on the journey and this stretch of golf that you’ve been on?
Kim: Yeah, it’s been a crazy month. Just before the Scottish I was just trying to get enough points to get in Korn Ferry Finals, and finishing third there, you know, finishing
third, I think I was zero points, how many points away from getting special temporary
membership, I had to make the cut at The Open and I did. I played 3M, Detroit and
Wyndham and really it’s been a five-week stretch for me, but it feels like three months.
Yeah, it’s been a hectic month and a lot of things have changed, for sure.
And before questions, you move to No. 34 in the FedExCup, so a lot more
golf in your future over the next few weeks. If you can comment on your goals now going into the FedExCup Playoffs.
Kim: Yeah, I was actually, I wanted to go home next week, I was looking forward to that. I’ve been home two weeks this year, so I was like, you know what, secure my PGA Tour card for next season, I can go back and relax for a week, but I guess that’s not going to happen. I would love to play three weeks in a row again. It’s going to be my eighth week in a row if I make it to the TOUR Championship. It’s a lot of golf, but I’m enjoying it and I’m honored to play on the PGA TOUR, it’s incredible.
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Are you surprised at all this, that you won? And you don’t shave yet, correct?
Kim: I wish I would have shaved yesterday so like I could look good in front of the camera. I didn’t really think about it. No, yes, I do shave, just a heads up. Yes and no. Like I’ve expected so much of myself and so does my team, we expect the highest. And it hasn’t been the easiest. It might look easy for a lot of people, but it’s a lot of work behind the scenes just from the manager just going so much beyond for me and just my family who put sacrifices.
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You mentioned some of the sacrifices your parents and your family have made.
Can you go into that a little bit?
Kim: Yeah, I mean just everything like the time that they have to sacrifice for me and just the things that they go through, the little things that I don’t need to worry about. I feel like even if I was a parent it would be a pain in the ass, but just yeah, just like booking stuff for me sometimes and when I was younger they would travel with me all the time. I wasn’t the most — I didn’t have the most financial comfort when I was younger, so that was — I’m just glad that I can support them now and they can just travel with me. Yeah, I can’t say exactly one thing that they’ve sacrificed. They’ve sacrificed so much for me. I’m just really glad that I can give this back to them.
Just a 20-year-old with a PGA Tour win?
Kim: Yeah, it has a nice ring to it
