Some days, golf comes easy. Others, it’s quite the opposite, leaving players wondering if that little white ball even fits into the hole.
At the LIV Golf Boston event this week, Sihwan Kim experienced both sides of the game in the span of 48 hours.
On Saturday, the former U.S. Junior Amateur winner and Stanford standout dropped a second-round 63 at The International. Impressive, right? And yet it still wasn’t enough to move him out of last place in the 48-man field.
That’s because of the score Kim had posted a day earlier: a 17-over-par 87, the worst round in the short history of the LIV Golf Invitational Series.
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In the first round, Kim made four bogeys and also four double-bogeys. In the second round, he bounced back with seven birdies and an eagle, and helped catapult his team — the Iron Heads — into third place on the team leaderboard.
Kim, who is 33, won the 2004 U.S. Junior Amateur at The Olympic Club and then played at Stanford from 2007 to 2011, winning Pac-12 Freshman of the Year honors in 2008.
He’s bounced around overseas tours in his 11 years since turning pro, briefly holding DP World Tour (then European Tour) membership, but primarily playing on the Asian Tour. He had his first two professional wins earlier this spring on the Asian Tour and also played in his first major championship this summer at the Open Championship at St. Andrews.
The week’s LIV event is Kim’s third start on the Saudi-backed circuit, where he’s had mixed results, finishing 44th in London and 15th in Portland. He’s also bounced around LIV teams this season, starting London as the captain of Smash and now playing on the Iron Heads.
Even after the 24-stroke improvement, Kim still finds himself in need of another low round to get out of the cellar, as he’s four back of James Piot and Peter Uihlein, who share 46th place.
The silver (platinum?) lining: If Kim doesn’t get out of last place, he still will walk away with $120,000 for his individual performance, with a chance to add more loot with a solid finish from his team.