Tag: Michael Kim

Davis Thompson gets first PGA Tour win at 2024 John Deere Classic, earns British Open spot

Thompson earned his first win in record-setting fashion.

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The name Davis Thompson is not unfamiliar for those who follow the PGA Tour.

He has been trending in recent weeks, with two runner-up finishes in his past six starts, including last week at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. His worst finish in that stretch, outside of a missed cut at the Canadian Open, was T-27.

And now, Thompson is a PGA Tour winner. He captured the 2024 John Deere Classic on Sunday for his first Tour victory. Thompson blitzed TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Illinois, setting a tournament scoring record of 28-under 256, besting Michael Kim’s 2017 record of 27 under. He won by four shots in his 63rd career start over a group of players at 24 under, including amateur Luke Clanton.

“I got off to a great start today and was able to just kind of cruise on the back nine,” Thompson said. “Yeah, getting off to a good start was crucial, and I was just able to ride the momentum coming in.”

With the win, Thompson also punched his ticket to the 2024 Open Championship at Royal Troon next week. He finished T-9 at the U.S. Open last month.

John Deere: Leaderboard | Photos

Thompson earned $1.44 million with the win in addition to 500 FedEx Cup points.

Also in a weird twist, for the third straight year at the John Deere Classic, the winner has stayed at the same house. In 2022, J.T. Poston took home the title while staying at the property. Last year, Sepp Straka was in a group of golfers who rented the house, and he won.

This year, Thompson was in the group who rented the house. And lo and behold, he’s the winner. He even stayed in the same room that Straka did.

“I think I have to pay for the whole house now, which is unfortunate, but I’ll gladly write the check for that,” Thompson said.

Thompson is also the 24th golfer to earn his first career win at the John Deere Classic, which is the most of any event in PGA Tour history.

Clanton, a 20-year-old junior at Florida State, became the first amateur since Billy Joe Patton in the 1950s to finish in the top 10 in back-to-back PGA Tour starts. He birdied his last hole to shoot 8-under 63 on Sunday and finish T-2 alongside C.T. Pan and Michael Thorbjornsen, who was making his third start as a PGA Tour member after earning his card via PGA Tour University.

Patton did it in the 1957 U.S. Open and 1958 Masters. Clanton did it in consecutive weeks, and he’s in the field next week at the ISCO Championship, as well.

For Pan, his finish earned him the second spot up for grabs this week at the 2024 Open Championship.

“It’s going to be a great trip,” Pan said. “Honestly going to be hectic to arrange all the travel details last minute, but it will be a good problem to have and my wife and I will be looking forward to our trip there.”

Max Homa’s title defense, low scores and the return of Michael Block lead 2024 Farmers Insurance Open Wednesday highlights

Calm conditions made Torrey Pines ripe for the picking Wednesday, especially the North Course.

SAN DIEGO — Record rainfall caused flooding and power outages across the county in the days leading up to the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open, which made for a soggy start to the PGA Tour’s annual trip to Torrey Pines.

A whopping 107 of the 156 players in the field were even par or better on a calm Wednesday at the 36-hole muni gem along the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean (No. 39 in Golfweek’s Best public courses list). And yes, the often gettable North Course produced significantly more birdies than the tricky South Course.

Kevin Yu leads the way after a bogey-free, 8-under 64, but the 25-year-old’s birdie fest wasn’t the only notable story from the first round. From a title defense in the making to signature event bubble watch and another sponsor exemption in the mix, here’s what you need to know about Wednesday at the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open.

Players in the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open field tell their favorite Tiger Woods at Torrey Pines stories

They just can’t help but talk about Tiger.

Tiger Woods made Torrey Pines his personal ATM for a 14-year stretch of his PGA Tour career.

Seven of his 82 victories on Tour came at the famed southern California muni, the first in 1999 and the last in 2013. And don’t forget his 2008 U.S. Open win over Rocco Mediate.

Woods isn’t in the field for this week’s 2024 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, but a handful of the players who are competing just couldn’t help but talk about Tiger in their pre-tournament press conferences. Check out what Max Homa, Xander Schauffele and more had to say about Tiger Woods and his history at Torrey Pines.

Farmers: Photos | First round tee times

How a round with Max Homa brought Michael Kim out of his social media shell

Despite his growing social media following, Kim got an ego check from the PGA Tour this week.

SAN DIEGO – Michael Kim has carved out his own piece of the internet pie due to his elevated presence on social media over the last couple of years.

As a one-time winner on the PGA Tour back at the 2018 John Deere Classic, the 30-year-old isn’t used to being recognized by fans off the course, let alone on it. Despite boasting a following that continues to grow week after week, he still gets brought back down to earth. This week it was the PGA Tour who checked his ego. Kim, who went to Torrey Pines High School, was left off the list of San Diego natives in the field for the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines (South Course).

“I’m kind of looking at the list and I see Charley Hoffman, yeah, I get that. I see Xander Schauffele, yeah, I get that. I see J.J. Spaun, I’m like, ‘Hmm … I don’t know, if you remember J.J. you probably should remember me,’” he joked. “And I see Cameron Sisk and I’m like, ‘Who the hell is Cameron Sisk?’ Funny enough, I actually ran into him on the range just earlier and he had a picture. He caddied for me like 10 years ago when I was playing this event as like a First Tee like walk up 18 and he sent me the picture. It was kind of funny, it was kind of one of my first old veteran guy moments, I guess. I still feel I’m one of the younger guys out here, but seeing that was kind of funny.”

Kim doesn’t know the exact moment when he decided to ramp up his game online, but he did credit former Cal teammate and social media star Max Homa – the Farmers defending champion – for opening his eyes to the good that can come from an active internet presence.

“I guess if there was one moment, I played with (Homa) at the Safeway not this last one but the one before that and for whatever reason Max and my career, we never really matched up. When I was playing well, he was playing bad and when he was playing well, I was playing bad,” Kim explained. “So I hadn’t really seen his following grow as much. I think that week was a big eye opener in seeing the following that he had, seeing the crowd that he drew.

“Certainly that was a bit of a catalyst for make thinking maybe I can use Twitter or X as something to grow, quote unquote, my brand,” he continued. “That was probably the biggest start point of it all.”

Farmers: First round tee times, how to watch

Most fans these days know Kim for his humorous and knowledgeable online posts and are quick to forget his on-course accolades. As a member of Cal’s golf team, Kim won the 2013 Haskins Award as the men’s college player of the year. That same year he represented the United States in both the Palmer Cup and Walker Cup. He graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour in 2015 and earned his first PGA Tour win three years later.

Then came the spiral. From the 2019-2021 seasons, Kim made 71 starts, missed 51 cuts and never finished inside the top 25 en route to losing his Tour card. He was forced to return to the Korn Ferry Tour for the 2021–22 season, but immediately regained his Tour card for the 2022–23 season, where he missed just two cuts over 32 starts and earned four top-10 finishes.

“It has been a pretty big rollercoaster ride. When you show up to — when you grow up hoping to someday play in the event, you don’t really — you only think about the good things that might happen, you don’t necessarily think about all the bad things that might happen,” said Kim. “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.”

This week Kim will make his eighth start at the Farmers, where he has a best finish of T-23 back in 2018. Even though he has plenty of fond memories of Torrey Pines, he rarely thinks of his own game when he returns to the William Bell design along the Pacific Ocean.

“Whenever I come back I remember mostly (Tiger Woods) shots, some of his most famous shots out here and me trying those shots, mostly the putt on 18 when he won the U.S. Open, or to get into the playoff in the U.S. Open,” said Kim, who played Torrey Pines two weeks later and tried to recreate the putt. “The cup wasn’t exactly there, so I put a tee down … I took a couple tries at it and I probably imitated Tiger’s fist pump and then looked around to see if anyone was watching. I probably wasn’t the only person trying that putt after that.”

Much like Homa was desperate to win his hometown event at the Genesis Invitational, Kim is hoping to follow suit here in San Diego.

“Yeah, this tournament is obviously really special for me. Torrey Pines is where I grew up playing, went to Torrey Pines High School. So I’m always excited to come back to this event and it’s almost a dream come true,” he said. “Dream is to actually win the thing, so we’ll see.”

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What PGA Tour players are saying about Lexi Thompson playing at Shriners Children’s Open

Here’s what several PGA Tour players have said about the 11-time LPGA winner teeing it up this week with the men.

LAS VEGAS — Although a number of intriguing storylines pop off the page at the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open, all eyes will be on Lexi Thompson when she tees off Thursday at TPC Summerlin as part of a group with Kevin Roy and Trevor Werbylo, making her the seventh women to play on the PGA Tour.

Thompson’s exemption caused at least one Tour player (Peter Malnati) to say the move might have been a reach by tournament organizers (see full Malnati comments below), but Thompson calmly brushed the episode aside when she met with media members Tuesday.

“No reaction. I knew some comments were going to happen with anything. Like I said, I’m out here playing of course with the men, but I want to leave a message just to the kids that I’m following my dreams and to go after what you want with a positive mindset and don’t let anybody’s comments or reaction get in the way of that,” Thompson said. “But it’s all good. I mean, I expected it, so… ”

Here’s what other PGA Tour players have said about the 11-time LPGA winner teeing it up this week with the men.

Billy Horschel, Lucas Glover scripting remarkable comeback stories among 5 thing to know at Wyndham Championship

Just two months after Billy Horschel opened with an 84 at the Memorial, he shares the 54-hole lead at the regular-season finale.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. — Just two months after Billy Horschel opened with an 84 at the Memorial and said through tears during his post-round press conference that his confidence “is the lowest it’s been in my entire career,” Horschel grabbed a share of the 54-hole lead at the Wyndham Championship.

One day after shooting 62 at Sedgefield Country Club, the low round of his career, Horschel backed it up with a bogey-free 7-under 63 on Saturday to tie Lucas Glover at 18-under 192. With time to kill at the end of the broadcast window, CBS re-aired the clip of Horschel’s emotional press conference, which included him saying, “I’m close.”

“That interview, that moment, as I’ve talked about a while, it was sort of like a release. I don’t fully understand why it happened then and there, because I had shared some of that with my team and my family before leading up to that, but right then and there it just happened,” he said. “From that moment I’ve been in a better head space, the game’s been going in the right direction since then.”

It doesn’t hurt that the putts have been dropping like old times. Last week, Horschel switched to an Odyssey putter and it’s been a game-changer this week. He ranks first in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting, gaining more than nine strokes on the greens and registered seventh straight under-par round.

“Just felt like needed a new look,” he said. “We sort of messed around with a Ping putter earlier this week and we thought we were going to use that, but I had a little hard time with longer putts, judging the speed with it, so we went back to this Odyssey and it’s working well.”

2023 Wyndham Championship
Billy Horschel sets to putt on the 8th green during the third round of the Wyndham Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: David Yeazell-USA TODAY Sports

Indeed, it is. Horschel, the 2014 FedEx Cup champion has qualified for the playoffs in each of the last 10 seasons but he entered the week at No. 116 in the point standings. He enters the final round projected to jump 63 spots and move on to Memphis next week, but he can’t finish worse than a two-way tie for second. The way he’s rolling the rock, his eighth win of his career is well within his sights.

“I’m happy where my game is, I’m happy where things are trending, I’m happy where mentally I’m heading,” he said. “So hopefully it’s just another day of moving forward, it’s another steppingstone. I haven’t been here in a while, but I’m prepared for whatever, however I may feel, whatever comes tomorrow.”

Here are four more things to know from the third round of the Wyndham Championship.

2023 U.S. Open field: Emiliano Grillo is among the last six golfers to make it in

The field for the 2023 U.S. Open is now set.

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The field for the 2023 U.S. Open is now set.

On Monday morning, the U.S. Golf Association announced three final exemptions as well as three alternates from final qualifying who are now a part of the 156-man field.

The 123rd U.S. Open starts Thursday at Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course.

With the additions of Emiliano Grillo, Pablo Larrazabal and Adam Schenk, there are 89 fully exempt players. Those three earned their spots when the Official World Golf Ranking was updated Monday with all three in the top 60.

Grillo (No. 43) will compete in his fifth U.S. Open. Pablo Larrazabal (No. 52) will play in his second U.S. Open. Schenk (No. 54) will also make his second U.S. Open appearance.

The final three spots went to golfers who were alternates coming out of the 13 final qualifying locations: Bastien Amat (a), Michael Kim and Maxwell Moldovan (a).

Amat, Kim, and Moldovan were all first alternates at their qualifiers. Moldovan had a marathon day, ultimately losing in a playoff in the Columbus qualifier on the 44th hole to Adam Schaake.

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Ryan Brehm takes step towards first PGA Tour win with 36-hole lead at Puerto Rico Open

Brehm finds himself just two more days away from his first win on Tour.

What do you get when you mix 36 holes of bogey-free golf with a 3-3-3 second-round finish? The 36-hole lead at a PGA Tour event.

Midway through the 2022 Puerto Rico Open – an opposite-field event to the elevated Arnold Palmer Invitational – Ryan Brehm finds himself just two more days away from his first win on Tour and first victory since the 2019 LECOM Health Challenge on the Korn Ferry Tour. The 35-year-old fired a 5-under 67 on Friday, aided by a birdie-eagle finish at Grand Reserve Golf Club.

“It was kind of boring until the end,” said Brehm of his round. “I feel like I had to scramble quite a bit, had some difficult up-and-downs, got them up and down, made a few good putts for par, kept the momentum going and finished with a birdie-eagle, made a bomb on the last hole. You add it up, it’s pretty good.”

Michael Kim, Satoshi Kodaira and Max McGreevy are in hot pursuit, just one shot back at 10 under. Callum Tarren rounds out the top five at 9 under.

“As much as you want to take a giant leap at the start, I’m definitely one to take a lot of steppingstones, for sure,” said McGreevy, who fired his career-low on Tour on Friday with an 8-under 64. “This is just one of those in that direction that’s just going to gain more confidence for myself and for my game and I’m excited for the next steppingstone. Hopefully another low round tomorrow and keep building on those steppingstones and hopefully keep giving myself chances.”

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Chase Seiffert, Michael Kim each shoot a first-round 65, co-lead Puerto Rico Open

All eyes are on the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but there’s another PGA Tour event going on this week.

All eyes are on the Arnold Palmer Invitational but there’s another PGA Tour tournament going on this week.

The Puerto Rico Open is the first opposite-field event of 2022 and Chase Seiffert posted an opening-round 65 to stake claim to the solo lead at the Grand Reserve Golf Club. He’s now posted under-par scores in all nine rounds he’s played in this event.

Last week, Seiffert was in a 16-for-1 playoff in the Monday qualifier for the Honda Classic. He didn’t win that playoff, which actually ended on Tuesday, but then managed to snag a spot in the field as the second alternate after Cameron Tringale and Tyler Duncan each withdrew. He made the most of his week there, as he was tied for sixth heading into the weekend and eventually finished T-25.

Seiffert on Thursday was 4 under through five holes and carded his fifth birdie on the front on the 9th hole. His only bogey came on the sixth hole. One of his birdies was a chip-in on the 13th.

Later in the day, Michael Kim closed with three birdies on his last four holes to also post a 65 and claim co-leader status. Kim’s round was bogey-free. His last Tour win came in the 2018 John Deere Classic.

Seiffert and Kim have one-shot lead over Ryan Brehm and a two-shot lead over Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Aaron Baddeley. Brehm also posted a bogey-free round Thursday. He has two Korn Ferry Tour wins but is seeking his first PGA Tour victory.

Aphibarnrat has 12 professional victories but is seeking his first PGA Tour win. He’s missed four cuts in six tournaments so far this season. His career-best finish on Tour is a tie for third, which he’s accomplished twice.

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Baddeley has four Tour wins, the last coming in 2016 at the Barbasol Championship. This is just his third start on Tour this season. He’s earned more than $22 million in his career but banked just $160,000 last season.

First place in Puerto Rico is good for $666,000. The par-72 course is playing at 7,506 yards this week. Designed by Tom Kite, the back nine at Grand Reserve has two par-5s that are longer than 600 yards.

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