Cantlay beats Rahm for PGA Tour player of year

His sisters might have been the first to know. Sungjae Im was 4 when his family moved from Cheongju, the historic city smack in the middle of South Korea, to golf-mad Jeju Island. That was when he first followed his mother to the golf course and got his first club, and soon he was tagging along to the course with his sisters. Right away they saw his potential; the boy hit it straight and rarely suffered a bad shot. A few years later, Brian Vranesh was among the first to know in the States. Vranesh had played on both the PGA TOUR (T8, 2009 Buick Open) and the Web.com Tour (playoff loss, 1999 Chitimacha Louisiana Open), so he’d seen great golf. He saw it again when he first caddied for Im at the Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament, Final Stage, at the end of 2017. “His ball doesn’t move much,â€� Vranesh said of Im, who led the Web.com money list wire-to-wire and is the most highly touted PGA TOUR rookie this season. “He hits it far enough with the driver. He’s one of the best putters I’ve ever seen. And he hits his irons really high, so on firm greens, which the majority of them are out here compared to the Web, he’s going to be fine.â€� He could be better than that. Everyone may soon know of the prodigious talent that is Im, 20, maybe as early as this week as the TOUR moves to Jeju Island for THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES, his boyhood course. Korea got its first marquee male player in K.J. Choi, who won THE PLAYERS Championship in 2011, and its first potential superstar in Si Woo Kim, who dominated at THE PLAYERS in 2017. Now brace yourself for Im, a big-bodied, cool-headed young pro who played junior golf (and shares a manager) with Si Woo Kim. Ernie Els, the International Team Captain for the 2019 Presidents Cup, is taking notice. “The kid is for real,” Els said Tuesday during a pre-tournament news conference. “He’s only 20 years old and he’s got a really unbelievable future ahead of him.” The immediate future, specifically the next few days on his home course, certainly could be unbelievable — especially if he can deliver a win to his home fans. “He’s going to bring a lot of popularity to the event this week,” Els said. So good, so young It was hard to miss the resemblance as Im tied for fourth at the season-opening Safeway Open two weeks ago, coming up just one shot shy of the Kevin Tway/Ryan Moore/Brandt Snedeker playoff that Tway eventually won. Im, with his deliberate takeaway, swings a bit like Hideki Matsuyama. “I never had any intentions of following his swing,â€� Im said of the Japanese star, through an interpreter. “But I like the fact that he plays to his own rhythm. I wanted to find my own unique swing rhythm as well, and people have been telling me that my swing resembles his.â€� Im actually is a bigger fan of Adam Scott and Tiger Woods, the latter of whom he took cell phone video at the PGA. (Having cracked the top 100 in the world, Im got a special invite and finished T42.) Somehow, though, Im has maintained his sense of wonder without the awe. “He’s got no fear,â€� Vranesh said. Prodigies often don’t. Im got his first coach at 7; was enrolled at a Korean golf academy by 12; and turned pro at 17. He ironed out the kinks on the Japan Golf Tour, among other places, and, traveling with his manager and parents, left little doubt as to his prowess on the Web.com Tour last season. Im won in his first Web.com Tour start before going on to produce 54 rounds in the 60s and 397 birdies, both tour records in 2017-18. He won again at the end of the regular season and also had three runner-up finishes and three other top-10s. He was the first Korean-born player to end the season as the leading money-winner and No. 1 in the final priority-ranking order. “He’s got the full package,â€� fellow Web.com Tour graduate Kramer Hickock said at the end of last season. “He’s got the mentality and the game of a 30-year-old.â€� That would make Im a decade wiser than his years, and more remarkable still was his T4 right out of the gate at the Safeway. So much for rookie nerves. “I didn’t know he was 20,â€� Tway said. “When I was 20, I don’t know what I was doing; playing college golf and drinking beer at J.R. Murphy’s in Stillwater. “His game was great,â€� Tway added. “He’s going to have a nice career, for sure. It didn’t look like anything phased him and he hit the ball well, putted well, so I think he’ll win soon, for sure.â€� If history is any indication, that’s a safe bet. “The atmosphere and environment of these tournaments have been amazing,â€� Im said through his interpreter/manager, Rambert Sim, at the Safeway. “Ever since I was a little kid, my dream has been to compete on the PGA TOUR, so I’m happy to have accomplished that goal.â€� Home cooking As the pride of Jeju Island, Im, whose parents travel with him and help with logistics (he doesn’t have his driver’s license) is sure to get copious attention at THE CJ CUP. Golf-wise, he said, the goal is a top-10 finish. That seems modest, but less so when you consider he’ll be focused not just on his game but also on Jeju having a great week. He hopes the field gets to experience the island’s signature winds, and plans to order his favorite dish, Jeju Black Pig. More broadly speaking, he dreams of becoming the first Korean to win the Masters. He could be a vital cog for the International Captain Ernie Els’ Presidents Cup team next year at Royal Melbourne. Nothing is off-limits except for maybe a No. 4 golf ball, as the number is said to be unlucky in South Korea. As Im once told the Portland (Oregon) Tribune: “In South Korea, the No. 4 represents death, so I try to avoid it for obvious reasons. That number doesn’t give me good vibes. Most South Koreans don’t like that number in general. Even in elevators, the fourth floor is represented with the letter ‘F’ instead of the No 4. It’s a common theme for most Korean golfers to never use a No. 4 golf ball.â€� After THE CJ CUP, the Asian Swing will end with next week’s World Golf Championship-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, after which Im will come back to the U.S. for the remainder of the fall schedule. It’s a lot of golf after a Web.com Tour season in which he played nearly every week. In fact, Im played 18 weeks during a 19-week stretch this season, and this comes after a 2017 campaign in which he made 14 starts in a 15-week stretch in the second half of the year. But why not? Im is young and embracing all the world has to offer. “I’ve definitely matured these last few years on the road,â€� he told the Tribune. And now that he has his TOUR card, there are a lot of FedExCup points at stake. Plus: room service. Lacking a U.S. base, Im and his parents live in hotels. He says he loves that someone makes his bed, among the other perks of hotel living, and is no hurry to buy a house. They look for Korean restaurants on the road, often finding them when tournaments take them to the bigger cities. “It’s been about eight months since I’ve been back in Korea,â€� Im said at the Safeway, about an hour north of San Francisco, “so I’m incredibly excited to go back.â€� Whatever his results this week, Im will return to Jeju after the fall season to rest up for 2019. The plan is to work on his driving; he hopes to get his license. Assuming he does, he may soon find himself traveling portions of the TOUR in a Porsche Cayenne, his car of choice. That seems about right. It’s all happening pretty fast for Sungjae Im, for whom life is an open road. THE SUNGJAE IM FILE BULLET POINTS • Recorded eight top-10s in 25 starts during the 2018 Web.com Tour season, highlighted by three runner-up finishes and two victories (The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Bay and WinCo Foods Portland Open presented by Kraft-Heinz). • Became the first player since 1990 to win the first and last event of the Web.com Tour’s Regular Season. • Earned his TOUR card for the 2018-19 season by finishing No. 1 on the Web.com Tour’s Regular season and became the first player in Web.com Tour history to go wire-to-wire atop the money list for the entire season (27 weeks). • At 20 years old, Im is the youngest member among the 21 rookies in the 2018-19 TOUR season. • Competed in two major championships in the 2017-18 season. He missed the cut in the 2018 U.S. Open, but produced the best result out of any Korean in the field at the PGA Championship, finishing T42. • In his first TOUR start as a full member, played his way into the final group on Sunday at the Safeway Open and finished T4, the best finish among the 21 rookies in the field. BY THE NUMBERS 19 days, 9 months, 7 days — Age when he won the Bahamas Great Exuma Classic, becoming the second youngest to win on the Web.com TOUR (Jason Day won the 2007 Legend Financial Group Classic at 19 years, 7 months, 26 days). 54 — Number of rounds in the 60s, the most of any player during the 2018 Web.com TOUR season. 397 — Total number of birdies, the most of any player in a single Web.com TOUR season since 2011. 68.00 — Final-round scoring verage, the lowest of any player during the 2018 Web.com TOUR season. $553,800 — Total earnings in 2018, the fourth most by any Web.com TOUR player in a single season. For more on Sungjae Im, click here for his player page.

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Everyone wants to be the front-runner, but the Masters lays out so many sensational choices that this is the most dangerous week of the season pre-FedExCup Playoffs to be the target. Concluding the season’s first major in the same position often feels more like an escape than the achievement that it is.  With that confidence-building pep talk for the rest of us setting the framework for our decision at Augusta National, this is also the time of the season when you should first take stock of who’s left on your board for the long haul.  My process is simple. I literally print out the top 50 of the latest Official World Golf Ranking, and then cross off everyone I’ve burned. In theory, only those inside this bubble will build my short list to carry me through an entire season of 48 tournaments. Of course, it never works out that way due to field construction and a handful of PGA TOUR non-members on it. Through the first 22 events, I’ve used only 16 of the current top 50.  From here, and especially for PGA TOUR Fantasy One & Done presented by SERVPRO gamers, you’re going to want to set aside at least three notables for the Playoffs since FedExCup/fantasy points are quadrupled for that series.  What you read next is a little bit of evidence with a mixture of good and bad luck, so take it for what it’s worth.  En route to my league title in 2015-16, I reserved Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth for the first, third and fourth events of the Playoffs, respectively, and still won despite a T31, T42 and T17 from those cornerstone investments. (Emiliano Grillo’s T33 at TPC Boston didn’t help much, either.) So, despite that patience, including the planned stymie with Spieth as the anchor, and no top 30s in the seven tournaments immediately preceding the TOUR Championship, I crawled to the finish line. It was a painfully ugly win, but it was also a lesson learned – build for now and later.  Once you’ve determined who’s still available from the top 50, highlight the notables who you can’t imagine going an entire season without using. Once you’ve done that, assign locked-in locations for the obvious. I’ve always advised setting Sergio Garcia aside for THE PLAYERS or The Open Championship because no one owns a more consistently strong record at both crapshoots than the defending champion of this week’s Masters. Weave in his continuously superb play just about everywhere and you’ll appreciate that confidence entering either tournament.  In this space a week ago, I proclaimed the probability that Rose would be my pick for the Masters. After going through the aforementioned process, I’ve changed my mind. Given my position (of power) in pursuit, I’m going with the modern-age horse for the course – Spieth. Rose could fill in the blank that Garcia doesn’t later.  I’m left with McIlroy, Jason Day and Henrik Stenson atop my list of probables for the Playoffs (with the backburner thought of the Ryder Cup tugging at the Euros), while Rickie Fowler still figures to size up as a strong contender in the majors. And I’ll still have the likes of Matt Kuchar, Patrick Reed, Louis Oosthuizen, Bubba Watson, Tommy Fleetwood, Branden Grace and Kevin Chappell at my disposal. And who knows, there’s plenty of time for Brooks Koepka to crash the conversation.  So as not to swerve around the focus of the Masters entirely, it’s one of those weeks when you really don’t even need my approval. It’s chalk city straight from the Power Rankings. In fact, the more valuable analysis is to fire away with brief parenthetical phrases to describe my concern on some you might be considering and shouldn’t. All can be found in QUESTION MARKS in the Power Rankings:  • Jason Dufner (track record)  • Tommy Fleetwood (inexperience)  • Martin Kaymer (track record and right wrist)  • Francesco Molinari (track record)  For two-man gamers eyeing Fred Couples, shop elsewhere. After opening the PGA TOUR Champions season with a T6 at Hualalai, his chronically sore back prevented him from defending his title at the Chubb Classic and teeing it up at the Toshiba Classic down the street from his residence in Newport Beach, California. I slotted him 20th in last year’s Power Rankings and got railed for it. He then finished T18. You know I wasn’t surprised, but I will be if he’s a factor this year FUTURE POSSIBILITIES  NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2017-18. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment.  Daniel Berger … St. Jude (1; two-time defending); Travelers (2)  Paul Casey … Masters (1); Travelers (4); WGC-Bridgestone (5); Dell Technologies (2); TOUR Championship (3)  Kevin Chappell … Valero (1; defending); St. Jude (5); WGC-Bridgestone (2); Dell Technologies (3)  Jason Day … Masters (4); PLAYERS (13); U.S. Open (2); Canadian (11); WGC-Bridgestone (9); PGA Championship (1); THE NORTHERN TRUST (8); Dell Technologies (5)  Jason Dufner … Fort Worth (2); Memorial (3; defending); U.S. Open (4); Wyndham (6); TOUR Championship (7)  Tony Finau … Valero (5); Memorial (3); Greenbrier (2); Canadian (4)  Rickie Fowler … Masters (8); Wells Fargo (7); PLAYERS (9); WGC-Bridgestone (3); THE NORTHERN TRUST (10); Dell Technologies (6)  Sergio Garcia … Masters (3; defending); PLAYERS (5); Open Championship (1); TOUR Championship (4)  Branden Grace … Heritage (1); Valero (2); U.S. Open (4); WGC-Bridgestone (3)  Brian Harman … Fort Worth (4); John Deere (3)  Russell Henley … Greenbrier (2)  Charley Hoffman … Heritage (7); Houston (5); Valero (1); Fort Worth (4); Travelers (2); Canadian (3)  Billy Horschel … Valero (3); St. Jude (1); TOUR Championship (4)  Dustin Johnson … Masters (4); Memorial (12); St. Jude (8); U.S. Open (13); Canadian (10); WGC-Bridgestone (14); PGA Championship (9); Dell Technologies (11); TOUR Championship (6)  Zach Johnson … Fort Worth (2); John Deere (1); Open Championship (5); WGC-Bridgestone (6); TOUR Championship (8)  Kevin Kisner … Heritage (4); Fort Worth (1; defending); Memorial (5); Wyndham (6)  Matt Kuchar … Masters (5); Heritage (1); Valero (10); PLAYERS (11); Fort Worth (6); Memorial (2); Canadian (3); WGC-Bridgestone (7); THE NORTHERN TRUST (9)  Marc Leishman … Fort Worth (7); Memorial (5); Travelers (2); Open Championship (1)  Hideki Matsuyama … Masters (5); Wells Fargo (13); PLAYERS (9); Memorial (10); U.S. Open (6); WGC-Bridgestone (8; defending)  Rory McIlroy … Masters (2); Wells Fargo (1); PLAYERS (8); Memorial (9); Open Championship (4); WGC-Bridgestone (7); Dell Technologies (5); TOUR Championship (3)  Phil Mickelson … Masters (4); Wells Fargo (2); St. Jude (1); Open Championship (5)  Francesco Molinari … PLAYERS (2)  Ryan Moore … Masters (8); Travelers (2); John Deere (3); TOUR Championship (6)  Louis Oosthuizen … Masters (2); U.S. Open (5); PGA Championship (4); Dell Technologies (3)  Pat Perez … Heritage (5); Valero (7)  Patrick Reed … Travelers (5); PGA Championship (8); Wyndham (7); THE NORTHERN TRUST (9); Dell Technologies (2)  Justin Rose … Masters (1); Wells Fargo (4); PLAYERS (9); Memorial (6); Open Championship (8); WGC-Bridgestone (7); TOUR Championship (2)  Charl Schwartzel … Memorial (4); U.S. Open (5); Open Championship (6); WGC-Bridgestone (2)  Adam Scott … Masters (4); PLAYERS (5); U.S. Open (10); Open Championship (8); WGC-Bridgestone (3); Dell Technologies (9); TOUR Championship (6)  Webb Simpson … Wells Fargo (7); Fort Worth (4); Travelers (8); Greenbrier (5); Wyndham (1)  Jordan Spieth … Masters (1); Heritage (12); Fort Worth (2); Travelers (6; defending); John Deere (7); Open Championship (9; defending); WGC-Bridgestone (10); TOUR Championship (4)  Brendan Steele … Valero (6); Wells Fargo (7); Travelers (3)  Henrik Stenson … Open Championship (6); WGC-Bridgestone (4); PGA Championship (7); Wyndham (8; defending); Dell Technologies (9); TOUR Championship (2)  Justin Thomas … Wells Fargo (9); Dell Technologies (6; defending); TOUR Championship (3) Jimmy Walker … Valero (6); Greenbrier (8); Dell Technologies (7)  Bubba Watson … Memorial (6); Travelers (5); Greenbrier (8); WGC-Bridgestone (1); TOUR Championship (4)  Gary Woodland … Wells Fargo (5); Barracuda (1); Dell Technologies (3)  Tiger Woods … Masters (2); WGC-Bridgestone (3)

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