RIDGELAND, S.C. – During the opening round of the CJ Cup in South Carolina, reigning FedEx Cup champion Rory McIlroy asked Tom Kim when he’d be turning 21. The answer – not until June 21– hit McIlroy like a bag of bricks.
“I’m going to be 34 before he can buy a(n alcoholic) drink in the United States,” he said after the round during a TV interview.
Then McIlroy asked Kim if he celebrated either of his two PGA Tour wins with a beer, the latest victory being just two weeks ago at the Shriners Children’s Open. Kim smiled and shook his head from side to side. McIlroy looked disappointed.
“All right, when you turn 21 and win your next PGA Tour event I’m going to bring you out for a few drinks,” McIlroy promised.
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Victory No. 3 could come sooner than that as Kim opened with a 5-under 66 at Congaree Golf Club on Thursday to tie McIlroy and sit just one shot off the first-round lead held by Trey Mullinax and Gary Woodland.
On a picture-perfect day without a cloud in the sky, Kim enjoyed playing with McIlroy for the first time in competition — they did previously play a practice round before the BMW Championship — and Rickie Fowler. As the temperature neared 70 degrees, Kim rolled up his sleeves as he and McIlroy combined for 11 birdies and just one bogey – by Kim at the last. (Fowler got off to a sluggish start signing for 3-over 74.)
“Playing on the PGA Tour and playing with guys like Rory and Rickie today, it’s a dream for me,” Kim said. “I’m still high up on gas and just excited to be here.”
Count McIlroy as impressed with the play of the young South Korean. “He didn’t really miss a shot out there. He’s a very, very solid player, plays to his strengths. Makes the same swing at it pretty much every time, like it’s very, very consistent, very steady,” he said.
Kim agreed with McIlroy’s assessment of his ballstriking, noting that a leaked 5-iron right on 10 was probably the furthest offline he hit any shot all day, but he still managed to make par from there.
This was a mutual admiration society as Kim praised McIlroy’s bogey-free round, which included driving the 360-yard par-4 15th hole and making birdie. McIlroy routinely outdrove Kim by 50-60 yards but Kim was unfazed and drilled approach shots closer than McIlroy, including at No. 17, where he stuck a 9-iron inside to 2 feet.
“Something you can’t copy, I think,” Kim said of the prodigious length McIlroy’s swing can produce. “It was really hard to just kind of play my own game sometimes. Seeing the lines he took and it was like 380 to the runout and he was saying, ‘Sit.’ I was like, really? Like, sit? It was like 380, but he almost made it. Things like that. Obviously what was the most important thing for me today was trying to play my own game and not look at his line, but it was still so much fun.”
Kim has an inquisitive mind. A day earlier he hijacked McIlroy’s pre-tournament press conference to ask him what it’s like having so much success at a young age. “Coming out and many years on tour, how do you manage all that?” he asked.
“I didn’t have as much success as you’re having at such a young age,” McIlroy replied.
Kim continued to pick McIlroy’s brain about a wide range of golf topics, including speed training in pursuit of more distance.
“I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no.’ I think as he gets a little older and maybe a touch stronger, he’ll get that naturally, but I was like, ‘Do not go down that path, you’re good the way you are,’ ” McIlroy said.
Among the non-golf topics? Fast food, a favorite cuisine of Kim’s.
“I asked him Chik-fil-A or Popeye’s and he told me he hasn’t had Popeye’s yet,” McIlroy recounted. “So I’m like no, you’ve got to have Popeye’s, I think it’s better than Chick-fil-A.”
McIlroy also thinks Kim’s game resembles that of 2021 Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama of Japan – except more consistent. High praise, indeed.
“Look, over the last 50 years there’s only been one other player to come out and win twice before his 21st birthday, so he’s made a really good start,” McIlroy said. “But, you know, we don’t need to make comparisons quite yet, just let him turn into the person he’s going to be and I think that will be good enough to have a hell of a career.”
