Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Players Championship
S. Korean Si Woo Kim is youngest winner.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — South Korea’s Si Woo Kim is just 21, but no one could believe it after watching him become the youngest winner of The Players Championship.
Louis Oosthuizen had a frontrow seat Sunday as Kim’s playing partner. Afterward, the 34-year-old South African momentarily was left to wonder what he even was doing at that age.
“It was actually my first year out on the European Tour,” Oosthuizen recalled. “I was still probably a bit of a hot head and throwing clubs or something. It took me a bit longer to be good at golf.”
Kim looked to be in his element on one of golf’s most pressure- packed stages, even as he stood on the 17th tee box where dreams have died in the pond surrounding the par-3 island green at TPC Sawgrass. “I wasn’t nervous at all,” he said. No one would doubt Kim for a after he turned in a bogeyfree 3-under par 69 to finish the week 10-under 278 total — three shots clear of Oosthuizen and Ian Poulter.
While many of the top contenders came unglued, Kim stoically made his way around TPC Sawgrass despite not having his A game.
Kim entered the day leading the field tee to green but Sunday relied heavily on his scrambling ability, finishing the day a remarkable 10-of-10 in upand-down opportunities.
Three times Kim saved par on difficult bunkers shots, but he said his best up-and-down was on the par-4 14th hole — the week’s second-most difficult hole. Off the putting surface and with little green to work with, Kim chipped the ball to two feet.
“Making a par on that hole actually made me win this tournament,” Kim said. He had plenty of help. Of the 12 players within five shots of the lead entering Sunday, just four broke par on the par-72 layout.
To salvage a 70 and a tied for fourth place, Rafael Cabrera-Bello needed the first-ever double-eagle 2 on the par-5 16th followed a birdie on the 17th hole and a 38-foot par putt off the 18th green.
Poulter needed a bogey save from the bushes and next to the cart path on the 18th hole for a 71, a score matched by Francesco Molinari, who moved from a tie for 10th to a tie for sixth.
The players who began the day at the top of the leaderboard had no such luck.
J.B. Holmes’ survived wayward ball striking for three days with a brilliant short game to grab a share of lead after 54 holes. Under final-round pressure, Holmes converted 1 of 11 up-and-down chance on his way to an 84 and a tie for 41st.
It was the highest score — by five strokes — among 54-hole leaders in tournament history.
“I’m going to have digest this,” Holmes said. “Right now, I’m just really disappointed.”
A day after he missed just one fairway and to tied Holmes at 9-under, Kyle Stanley found just six of 14 fairways to shoot 75.
Early in the back nine, the tournament was a three-man race among Kim, Poulter and Oosthuizen, who sank a 34-foot eagle putt on the par-5 11th to pull within two shots of the lead. Consecutive bogeys on the 13th and 14th holes ended Oosthuizen’s hopes for his first win on U.S. soil and left Kim and Poulter to duke it out. It was no contest. “He played like someone that was doing it for five or six years, like it was just another round of golf,” Oosthuizen marveled. “Never once did he look flustered at all.”
Kim arrived at TPC as an afterthought among the 147-man field.
In 18 starts in 2017, he had just one top 10 and ranked dead last (No. 208) in the PGA Tour’s all-around ranking. Not any longer. With Sunday’s win, Kim picked a $1.89 million winner’s check and a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour. He also joined Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia, and Jordan Spieth as the only players during the last 25 years to win two tournaments before turning 22.
After his final-round performance, Kim might have been the only one surprised.
“I didn’t expect that I could be the champion of this tournament at this young age,” he said. “I’m just so honored.”