Joohyung Kim studies his putt on the 18th during the second round of the Wyndham Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Nell Redmond-USA TODAY Sports
South Korea’s Joohyung Kim, who goes by Tom, a nickname he was given as a kid after the cartoon Thomas the Train – “I had the whole [Thomas the Train] thing, I had the lunchbox, I had the toys, yeah,” – carded rounds of 67-64 to head into the weekend at 9-under 131.
He’s tied for the lead despite opening the tournament with a quadruple-bogey eight, the worst start of his career.
“I was laughing,” he said. “There was like nothing I could do. It was just the first hole and gosh, I just got a really bad lie and then didn’t really have another good lie and didn’t really have another good lie, didn’t really have another good lie. It turned out not bad.”
It has never happened on the PGA Tour since they started tracking hole-by-hole stats 40 years ago.
Only once has a player made quad in the first round and won in that span – Mickelson at East Lake in 2009 (14th hole). https://t.co/88dtbmLa4w
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) August 5, 2022
Kim, 20, rallied with seven birdies to shoot 3-under 67.
“I just stayed really patient out there. I knew there were birdies out there. Once I got momentum, I kept pushing and I think that’s how like seven birdies came out there,” he said. “It was one bad hole and I just told myself, you know what, I can still get this, I can still shoot under par today and somehow I did.”
On Friday, Kim made seven more birdies and just one bogey en route to shooting 64. When he drove into the bunker at the first hole – his 10th of the day – he thought to himself, “Well, here we go, just don’t make a quad.”
He made par. “So most improved on hole No. 1,” he cracked.
Kim has been putting out of his mind this week. He has made 301 feet, 1 inch of putts, marking the most in the first two rounds since the Wyndham Championship moved to Sedgefield Country Club in 2008. He’s gained 9.2 strokes on the greens, the most SG: Putting in consecutive rounds (in the same event) this season.
“If you would have told me after the first hole yesterday where I’d be after two days, I definitely would have taken it, so pretty happy,” Kim said.
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