Champ cards torrid front-nine 28 at Rocket Mortgage Classic

It won’t be easy for Phil Mickelson to hear. He won’t ever admit it himself. But for the good of Team USA, says Kevin Van Valkenburg, it’s time for him to sit ’til his singles match on Sunday.

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Tom Kim may be just 20 years old, but he’s set to be a CEO. No, not in the ilk of a Silicon Valley start-up. Kim isn’t going to don a V-neck and skinny jeans and learn to code. He’s prepared to be the Chief Energy Officer for the International Team in this week’s Presidents Cup at Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Club. The third-youngest participant in Presidents Cup history, Kim has vowed to bring the same infectious personality and style that has led to an incredible rise through the ranks in the last few months. Kim first popped on many fans’ radars after his third-place finish in the Genesis Scottish Open, followed by another top-10 at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Then there was the thrilling win at the Wyndham Championship, where he started the tournament with a quadruple-bogey and ended it with a 61 to win by five and become the second-youngest winner on TOUR since World War II (only Jordan Spieth was younger). Kim nearly made it to the TOUR Championship after starting the season without status, finishing 32nd in the FedExCup, and is now 22nd in the world ranking after beginning the year at No. 131. Kim also stormed his way into a spot on the International Team with his strong summer, earning one of six automatic spots on Trevor Immelman’s squad. That pleased the International captain, who’d been watching Kim for a while on the recommendation of noted instructor and good friend Claude Harmon III, who happened across Kim during a practice round. The more Immelman saw, the more he liked. “He’s an incredibly mature, well-rounded guy for just being 20,” Immelman says. “He’s the real deal. There’s no doubt about it. He’s got this this enthusiasm that is palpable.” And it is that enthusiasm that might just be Kim’s best weapon in Charlotte this week. Kim lives by the motto of giving his all every single time. No regrets. His parents have drilled it home and he subscribes to the theory. The challenge ahead of the International Team is momentous. Kim knows this. The U.S. Team has never lost the Presidents Cup on home soil and is a dominant 11-1-1 overall in the competition. But it doesn’t worry him one bit. Kim knows all about underdog status. He knows records are there to be broken and the past is just that, the past. Failure only stays failure if you don’t respond to it. And he won’t be sitting in a corner of the team room in silent mode. Far from it. “I hope to just get the energy going (for the team),” Kim said. “I’m a lot younger than all the guys on the team, so hopefully I can bring that young energy and just be a kid out there and have all the fun we can. We know it will be tough but as long as we come together as a team, we’re going to have a chance. So, I intend to be a good energy out there for the team.” The International Team has a long history of great Asian players. From the early pioneers like Tsukasa Watanabe, Shigeki Maruyama and Masashi ‘Jumbo’ Ozaki to K.J. Choi (now a captain’s assistant) and Y.E. Yang into the new breed like Hideki Matsuyama, Si Woo Kim and Sungjae Im. There are a record four South Koreans on the International Team this year: Kim, Sungjae Im, Si Woo Kim and K.H. Lee. Traditionally, Asian players have been somewhat quiet in the team environment. Many factors, including the language barriers and reserved culture, may have contributed to this. But in the most recent Presidents Cup in 2019, the addition of Choi as an assistant and the youthful exuberance of Im showed a new blueprint. Im was a standout as a rookie for Captain Ernie Els at Royal Melbourne with a team-leading 3.5 points earned with a 3-1-1 record. Only a huge U.S. Singles fightback on Sunday kept the Internationals from winning again at Royal Melbourne. Im was one of seven rookies for the Internationals in 2019. This year’s team has a record eight rookies. “It worked well in 2019. There was a real cleanout, a very fresh young team and there was a vibe of no scar tissue and incredible excitement,” team stalwart Adam Scott said ahead of his 10th Presidents Cup. “The new guys had spent their lives watching the Presidents Cup and were stoked to be in it. In teams before, it had been a grind for a lot of long-time players, including myself, of taking it on the chin a lot and not getting any good results. “It was so fun to see the enthusiasm of the young fellas coming in and Ernie did a fantastic job inspiring them. And Trevor has done a great job carrying that over. That fun vibe will continue with all the fresh blood in the team this time around and if we can get the momentum going, we might just shock the world.” Scott has advocated for Kim to be part of that narrative this week and the youngster is keen to take on the challenge. But don’t call him the next Sungjae Im. Or the next anything. He is the one and only Tom Kim and he’s out to make sure you remember it. He doesn’t do ‘normal’. After all – he was born Joohyung Kim but insisted on changing to Tom after becoming obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. He speaks three languages. He turned pro at 15. He gave up sugar during the recent TOUR season to maintain peak fitness. And while growing up he watched DVDs about Tiger Woods until they started to fade, he’s not out to copy his idol – except in one facet. Mindset. This was reinforced recently watching “The Last Dance” documentary about Michel Jordan’s NBA career a handful of times. “To be the best, you have to think very, very differently, and I think the guys out here who have had success are like that,” Kim explains. “Jordan, Tiger, Justin Thomas, whoever it is… they have their own unique sense, and I also think that I have a unique sense. That’s the thing I really look up to because Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, they’re very all unique and they excelled in their sports.” Kim has quite the backstory. After leaving Korea, he lived in multiple countries as a child – China, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand were all part of his journey as his father, Chang-ik Kim, turned from professional golfer to teaching pro. Tom was in Melbourne as a 9-year-old during the 2011 Presidents Cup, but his family couldn’t afford tickets to attend the tournament. At 13, when the Cup was in his native Korea, he’d moved to the Philippines but kept a very close eye on things. He turned pro right around the 2017 Cup as the Internationals were trounced at Liberty National and was again a keen observer as a 17-year-old three years ago. “I was watching in 2019 and I told myself, man, how cool would it be to be able to represent that team,” Kim recalls. “I know Sungjae pretty well, and he’s bragged about being on that team when I wasn’t there. It definitely was a motivation factor seeing him play and wishing that hopefully I can get on the team. I didn’t really think that this year I’d be able to play. I was pretty far away, but the last few months have been exciting for many reasons. And to make this team is a big part of that. I’m very excited.” Kim arrives at Quail Hollow with veteran caddie Joe Skovron on his bag. The former long-term caddie to Rickie Fowler was on the bag when Fowler won at Quail Hollow back in 2012. It might be the start of taking things to the next level. Scott thinks Kim is already well and truly on his way. “He’s the perfect player we need,” Scott continues. “He’s a guy with red hot form and confidence and he can match it with the best of the TOUR. If he plays his game like we know he can, he becomes a real weapon in match play. He’s not afraid to play his best and he’s not afraid to speak up either. I already feel younger around him.” Sounds like he’s a great CEO already.

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RIDGELAND, S.C. – Rory McIlroy was not in a waiting mood as he stood fidgeting on the tee at the par-4 15th hole at Congaree Golf Club, site of THE CJ CUP in South Carolina. The hole measures 360 yards but features a deep and rugged bunker that juts into the fairway from the left, and most players prudently lay up short with long irons, as McIlroy’s two fellow competitors already had. Not McIlroy. He stood there looking like Popeye fresh from an all-you-can-eat spinach buffet, until he could stand idly no longer. McIlroy unleashed a mighty swing and launched a moonshot that scoffed at the 320 yards it needed to cover the gaping bunker, his ball then pounding firm turf and scooting between a greenside bunker and a golf bag before finally stopping on the front of the green. The players and caddies on the green weren’t ready for that. Keegan Bradley, playing alongside Thomas and Jon Rahm up ahead, threw both arms over his head, hopefully only in jest at his South Florida neighbor. After the group teed off at 16, McIlroy would walk up and apologize. He was sorry/not sorry. “Yeah, the longer I stood over that tee shot,” McIlroy said, “the more likely it was that I was going to lay up, so I just needed to step up and hit it. Whether they were on the green or not, I had to go.” Had to go. In a larger picture frame, that line seems to capture where it is in the golf universe that McIlroy finds himself at the moment. There are few things in golf as feared as McIlroy when he is armed with a hot driver and a belly filled with confidence. At Congaree on Thursday, where his opening 5-under 66 left him just one shot off the lead, McIlroy had both. He is playing well, he is No. 2 in the world (closing fast on top-ranked Scottie Scheffler), he has momentum on his side, and it is time to go. Time to make his move. Last autumn, McIlroy, 33, was coming off a dismal performance at the Ryder Cup, where the European team’s clear-cut leader had laid an egg, and his team got trounced. He was in tears. Having climbed to No. 1 eight different times in his career – doing so the first time in 2012 – McIlroy had slid to 14th. No-man’s land for him. Frankly, he was lost. So he hit reset and decided to do something about it. His priority? Reclaiming ownership in his own game. Making sure whatever he was doing had his own thumbprint. Never one to stand in one place, McIlroy had chased more speed, a rabbit hole, and listened to advice outside of Michael Bannon, his instructor since his youth in Northern Ireland. McIlroy eventually would move forward by pausing and taking a step back. “I sort of went down a path that I realized wasn’t for me,” McIlroy said. “That was really it, just trying to get back ownership of my game, my golf swing, and being OK with doing it my way. I think that was the big thing.” Thursday, outside of a wild opening tee shot, there was little to fault in his game. He ran off three consecutive birdies starting at Congaree’s par-5 fourth, and he tacked on two more birdies on the back, including an easy two-putt birdie after reaching the green at 15. After he’d driven the green, a tanned marshal on the tee was asked if other players in the field also had been doing that. “Uh-uh,” the marshal said, somewhat shock-like, shaking his head side-to-side. You’d have thought he’d just spotted Sasquatch. Tom Kim, the 20-year-old South Korean who already has two PGA TOUR victories, knows that McIlroy packs plenty of power into a small frame, but it was different to be playing alongside him, and to witness it for 18 holes. “He makes this game look so easy,” said Kim, who was impressive in his own right. (Kim briefly tied the lead when he stuffed a 9-iron inside 2 feet at the par-4 17th, reaching 6 under on his round, but gave the shot back with an errant drive on the final hole.) Kim seemed to think getting to play golf with McIlroy (and Rickie Fowler) was the coolest thing since the new iPhone. It was hard not to be a spectator. At the par-5 12th, for instance, McIlroy smashed a drive around the corner that was 80 yards past Kim’s. “Something you can’t copy, I think,” Kim said of McIlroy’s power. “It was really hard to just kind of play my own game sometimes. Seeing the lines he took, and it was like 380 (yards) to the runout and he was saying, ‘Sit.’ I was like, ‘Really? Like, sit?’ It was like 380, but he almost made it.” McIlroy spent a few days last week in Florida fine-tuning with Bannon, trying to get his right arm to support the club a little better at the top. Swing-wise, he’s in a nice place. And not only does he have the No. 1 world ranking back in view, McIlroy, who became the first two-time winner of the PGA TOUR’s FedExCup in August, can finish in the top spot on the DP World Tour, too. The DP World Tour Championship is Nov. 17-20 in Dubai. Plenty at stake in mid-October? That is a very nice destination. “Maybe if I didn’t have these two things to go for over the next couple of months, I would take a bit of time off, but I still feel motivated,” McIlroy said. “I think playing well motivates you even more also. There’s definitely no lack of that.” Outside of perhaps a dose more patience on that 15th tee on Thursday, Rory McIlroy did not lack for much.

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