He won the ‘fifth Major’ aged only 21 and fared well at the US Open. What lies ahead for South Korea’s latest bright, young star Si Woo Kim?
It’s not quite the curse of The Masters Par 3 Contest, where no golfer who has won that event has gone on to wear the Green Jacket in the same year, but it’s not that far off.
Since The Players Championship, long considered the ‘fifth Major’ on the Tour, was first won by the great Jack Nicklaus in 1974, only one man has won the US Open in the same year in 43 attempts up to now. In fact, just five golfers have added a US Open and
a PGA Championship title to The Players Championship in their entire careers.
Only Martin Kaymer, in 2014, has been the exception to what could be considered the norm. The German went on from TPC Sawgrass to trample all over the US Open field at Pinehurst Resort that year, winning by a yawning eight shots.
In doing so, he also became one of that group of five to secure the ‘fifth Major’, along with the US Open and PGA Championship, joining Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd, Lee Trevino and Tiger Woods as those who have achieved that feat.
The closest anyone has come this century to emulating Kaymer in following a win at The Players with victory at the US Open was back in 2000 when Woods lost out by one stroke to Hal Sutton at TPC Sawgrass and then went on to an incredible 15-shot victory over Ernie Els and Miguel Angel Jimenez at Pebble Beach.
So, what chance does Si Woo Kim have of going on to ‘do a Kaymer’ and win at Erin Hills in June? Well, the bookies regard him as a 100-1 outsider.
Kim’s victory by three shots over Louis Oosthuizen and Ian Poulter at TPC Sawgrass moved him 47 places up the world ladder to No 28. In 278 shots he became the highest-ranked South Korean in the world – and it’s probably worth noting that there are six golfers from that emerging country now in the top 100.
Korean-born coach John Kang attempted to explain why South Korea is enjoying the proverbial explosion of a world-class generation coming through on the men’s and women’s Tours.
‘Koreans love to play golf recreationally,’ he said. ‘However, if they decide they want to improve their golf game or make a career out of it, they treat it the same as they would going to school or doing a job. They are willing to put in as much time as it takes for them to be successful.
‘School in Korea is not like school in Australia, for instance. In Korea, kids go to school, then spend three to five hours outside school hours every day taking tuitions, studying, taking extra courses. Things are competitive back there. There are limited opportunities available for kids to go to a good university and they do whatever they can to outperform the others.’
Kim played alongside Louis Oosthuizen in the second-last pairing on the Sunday, and for the purist this was swing poetry in motion. The South African is considered to have one of the sport’s best swings, although Kim, a largely expressionless 21-year-old, looked just as smooth.
How long the young man will be able to continue with that perfect swing, however, is anyone’s guess, because there were occasions during that defining fourth round when he would grab his lower-right back and seemed to ‘self-massage’ before
hitting a drive off the tee. That suggests there is some serious strain being put on that region, but for now, with age being on his side, it’s all systems go.
There have been 16 different winners of The Players in the past 16 years, and with each of them getting a personalised locker in a private champions locker room, they are starting to double up in that hallowed space. Yet, when he returns next year, the Korean will be sharing with some of the best players of this, and for him, a previous generation.
He won at TPC Sawgrass in only his second appearance at a course which can bring the best to their knees – we saw this in the final round when 54-hole leader JB Holmes slumped to an 84, seemingly refusing to budge from a bold plan of hitting the driver whenever he could.
Yet Kim was a complete outsider, even wider than the 100-1 he is quoted for the US Open. That back pain has been constant and his best finish in 2017 had been a tie for 22nd at the Texas Open and he missed the cut at The Masters. His stats in all the ‘recognised areas’ were among the worst in the field, yet he came through by three shots at The Players. More evidence that stats, more often than not, do lie.
Kim had a superb day with his approach shots and his putter, and he became the youngest Players champion in the history of the tournament. He finished with nine straight pars on the back nine, and he was calm on the outside as he worked his way through
the final holes.
But he was winning for the second time on the PGA Tour in the US after capturing the 2016 Wyndham Championship, so it’s not like he flew in, fluked the ‘fifth Major’ and will drift back into obscurity. In fact, he has won twice more on Tour in the US, at the age of 21, than Oosthuizen has. And Kim now is armed with a five-year exemption on the Tour.
Obviously, judging by what history has coughed up, The Players trend could well be good news for those who featured significantly on the leaderboard at TPC Sawgrass, but didn’t quite pull through. Those must include Oosthuizen, who led after two rounds and was only one shot behind after 54 holes, heading into the final round. There he carded a second successive 73 to finish in a tie for second with a resurgent Ian Poulter, and three shots off the winner.
Oosthuizen had been consistent in stating what his ambitions were for 2017.
‘I adjusted my calendar accordingly so that I could spend most of my time at my second home in Florida, being close to my family
which now includes school-going children, and working on my FedExCup ranking,’ he told me last December.
The FedExCup culminates in a shootout for a $10-million first prize and the 35-year-old South African felt that in previous years he had left himself with too much ground to make up, after conceding points while playing on the European Tour. ‘The FedExCup and the Majors are my targets for 2017,’ he said.
One could say it was ‘job done’ then at TPC Sawgrass as his runner-up position not only saw him bank some $900 000 (over R13-million) but, perhaps more importantly, moved him up into 32nd in the FedExCup rankings.
‘Obviously it wasn’t the weekend I was wanting, but now I am looking forward to the next couple of months,’ the South African said after moving back into the world’s top 20. Those next months will include two more Majors – the US Open and The Open Championship, which he won in 2010, and he has also been runner-up at both.
– This article first appeared in May issue of Compleat Golfer, since then Kim has gone on to avoid the ‘curse’ and finished T13 at the US Open
