The world’s 100th-ranked golfer normally doesn’t get his own news conference before a PGA Tour event, but an exception was made Tuesday at Torrey Pines Golf Course.
Maybe it was because Michael Kim was coming off a strong finish last week. Or maybe it was a bit of a mea culpa by the folks who forgot Kim grew up just a few miles away from where the Farmers Insurance Open begins today.
Last weekend, when the tournament press notes highlighted players from San Diego, Kim was not included.
“I literally went to Torrey Pines HS and they still forget about me….” Kim tweeted Monday morning with an emoji of a man slapping his forehead.
There was a time not long ago when Kim easily could have been forgotten — probably even wanted to be forgotten. Starting with the last two events of 2018 and continuing through the end of 2020, he missed the cut or withdrew from all but one of the 44 PGA Tour events that had a cut. He lost his Tour card while his world ranking, which was as high as No. 199 in 2018 after he won the John Deere Classic and finished tied for 35th in the British Open, plummeted to No. 1,803 in January 2021.
Three years later his ranking is higher than it’s ever been — though as he joked, amateur Nick Dunlap needed just four pro tournaments to get ahead of him — and he spent at least part of Tuesday answering questions in a hotel ballroom alongside the 18th fairway of his “home” course.
“This tournament is obviously really special to me,” said Kim, who now lives in Dallas but is staying this week with his parents in Del Mar. “I’m always excited to come back to this event and it’s almost a dream come true.
“Dream is to actually win the thing, so we’ll see.”
Tuesday marked the 10th anniversary of Kim playing his first PGA Tour event as a professional. Despite being “as nervous as I’ve ever been,” he opened with a 2-under 70 on Torrey Pines North but shot 80 the next day on the tougher South Course and missed the cut.
In a way, it was a sign of things to come.
“It has been a pretty big rollercoaster ride,” Kim said of the past decade.
Safety inspectors wouldn’t allow a rollercoaster that big. But through it all, and with help the last two-plus years from new coach Sean Foley, Kim found a way to persevere. He’s still just 30.
“When you grow up hoping to someday play (on tour),” he said, “you only think about the good things that might happen, you don’t necessarily think about all the bad things that might happen. During those ups and downs I feel like I’ve grown a lot as a person and as a golfer. Surely much more knowledgeable about my mental game, my full swing and all that. Hopefully I can use those ups and downs to further my career starting now.”
He regained his card for the 2022-23 season, played well enough (four top-10s, eight top-25s) to earn $2.2 million and place in the top 75 of the FedEx Cup standings, then finished tied for sixth last week at The American Express.
“I just have a ton of gratitude being here feeling like my game is in good shape,” he said. “Never would have imagined the degrees of ups and downs, but in the end I can consider it as just a big process.”
One of his college teammates wasn’t surprised Kim made it through. Defending Farmers champion Max Homa, the world’s seventh-ranked player, said Tuesday he was a fan of Kim’s from the day he met him at Cal. Another teammate, Michael Weaver, asked Kim and Homa what club they were hitting on a par-3 during a practice round. Kim said 5-iron. Homa said 8-iron.
“Weaver had 8-iron and he starts laughing,” Homa said. “… He’s kind of giving him grief. Michael, he’s got to be 17, maybe 18, hasn’t even been on the team yet, he just stone-cold looked him in the face and said, ‘I’m going to hit this 5-iron inside your 8-iron.’ I was like, ‘I like this kid.’ That’s my best way to explain why I love that dude.”
Of Kim’s comeback, Homa said: “It’s awful to see people struggle at something they love. … But I think it teaches you a lot about yourself and it can kind of show the world what you’re made of. And I think he’s done an amazing job. He hasn’t given in, he’s just looked for answers and tried to get better.
“I contend that you can go through it and a lot of people probably don’t make it to the other side, but when you do, I think you learn more about yourself and you’re more ready to handle professional golf and all of the trials and tribulations that will come with it after that. It’s been really fun to watch Michael play such great golf as of late. I know that he is now a better golfer because of it.”
Homa did not help Kim with his game — “I will never insert myself that way” — but he did provide inspiration of sorts for another part of Kim’s life. The two played together 16 months ago in the Napa tournament and Kim said it was “a big eye opener” seeing the crowds following Homa, who had created quite a following through social media.
“Certainly that was a bit of a catalyst for me thinking maybe I can use Twitter or X as something to grow, quote unquote, my brand,” Kim said.
He has more than 108,000 followers on Twitter, where his posts include everything from swing analysis (of himself and followers), observations about tournaments and sometimes just a story about something that happened to him. Or, in the case of last Sunday after his strong finish in the desert, a picture of his post-round dinner (at In-N-Out).
“Ours are different,” Homa said of their Twitter feeds. “He’s nice. I’m not very nice.
‘He clearly wants to kind of be himself and show who he is and I feel like he’s doing a great job of that. He’s a smart kid, he’s funny, he’s witty. He’s got all those great things I think most people out here have; it’s just how willing are you to put yourself out there. I’m happy for him to take the reins on Twitter because it’s not for the faint of heart. I’m personally sick of it. So he’ll go through the same ebb and flow that I saw.”
Kim said he hasn’t seen too many of the negatives so common on Twitter. So far he’s enjoying it.
“Once in a while I’ll get someone from the crowd recognizing me, which as kind of a regular PGA Tour player is pretty rare,” he said. “So just those moments kind of shows me that I’m doing something good, I guess. I think it’s those moments that kind of surprise me, like, oh, my gosh, you actually recognize me compared to the next guy? Those kind of moments are probably the positives, for sure.”
