​Three years feels like a short horizon for most players, unless you’re 24 and the golf world has spent the better part of that time wondering what happened to your game. Tom Kim arrived on the scene as a teenage sensation, turning pro at 15 and racking up three PGA Tour wins before he could legally rent a car. With a bright personality to match his talent, he became a fan favorite and looked set to join the ranks of golf’s next global stars. Then the strokes of misfortune began: putting woes, an illness, a drought in victories, and, as a consequence, a flood of questions.
On Sunday at the Genesis Scottish Open, Kim answered those questions with emphatic clarity, finishing with a six-under 64 to reach 17 under and secure his first PGA Tour title since the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open, two shots ahead of Min Woo Lee. It was a triumph that felt earned and overdue. Afterward, an emotional Kim admitted, “I’m trying to wrap my mind around this. The round I played today has required so much work.”
For years Kim has been regarded as one of the game’s brightest young talents, yet the past two seasons saw his game slip, a decline many attributed to a stubborn putting stroke. Early in his career he ranked among the Tour’s best on the greens; later, he slid to 102nd in Strokes Gained: Putting. In 2024, he also stepped away from the game briefly after withdrawing from the Players Championship due to a mysterious illness that required him to pause competition.
Kim didn’t vanish from the spotlight entirely. His fiery play and the celebrations that followed energized the International Team in two Presidents Cups and kept him in the public eye as a member of Tiger Woods’ TGL squad. Still, come Sunday afternoons, the cameras didn’t always linger on him.
Then signs of a comeback began to emerge this year. A return to his familiar Scotty Cameron putter coincided with a tie for 15th at the RBC Canadian Open and a third-place finish at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. If his game had finally found its footing, the Renaissance Club in Scotland was the perfect stage to show it. He had happy memories there: in 2022 he finished T-3 for his first top-10 on tour, followed by another solid result with a T-17 last year.
“It’s really cool not just to win but to win this event,” Kim said. “This is where I had no status and I finished third to really give myself a chance and get myself out here. I’m at a loss for words.”
Kim’s long road back stretched on through a grueling Sunday. He teed off in the second-to-last group, having started the day shortly after sunrise to complete a third round that had been interrupted by fog on Saturday. With tranquil, clear conditions replacing the fog’s damp air, he opened with a birdie and added two more before the turn.
In adjusting to the modern power game that has defined the tour in recent years, Kim at times sacrificed some of the precision that had once been his calling card. At the Renaissance Club, that version of Kim—the one who could carve up a course with surgical accuracy—made a decisive return, providing a fresh reminder of his enduring talent and resilience. The victory at a course steeped in his early memories felt fitting, as if the old Kim had stepped back in to remind the world why he remains a compelling figure in the game.