Tom Kim couldn’t exactly articulate on Friday what his struggles were in the 2025 PGA Tour season, but it’s clear they were less about the club in his hand and more about what was going on in his head.
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“It’s a big mental game,” the South Korea native said after the second round of the Sanderson Farms Championship, where Kim shot 66 to get into a tie for fifth at the Country Club of Jackson (Miss.).
“When you’re not confident about yourself on the golf course, you’re not going to hit as good of shots as you would normally be able to. After the season got done, I saw everything more clearly, how I needed to get it done, and ever since the last putt dropped after the season, I’ve been working towards that and it’s been building blocks every week until today and as will progress to next year.”
The 23-year-old Kim has been known as a seemingly good-natured guy, frequently sporting a smile and readily displaying his emotions. His celebrations during the Presidents Cup have spurred his International teammates and grated on his American foes.
But there have been fewer happy moments since Kim’s third and last tour victory in 2023 at the now-defunct Shriners Childrens Open in Las Vegas. Over the past two seasons he has registered only three top-10s—the last coming eight months ago with a T-7 in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Through this past summer, Kim made most of the weekends, but he didn’t record anything better than a T-17 in the Scottish Open (with most finishes considerably worse), and he missed the cut the next week at the British Open by shooting 76 in the second round.
It has been quite the tumble for the young man who ranked 11th in the world at the start of the ’24 campaign. He’s now at No. 86 and finished 94th in the 2025 FedEx Cup standings to miss the playoffs for the first time.
Most of Kim’s statistics from last season put him in the middle of the pack on tour, but it was his putting that most failed him with a strokes-gained rank of 114th.
He said he took time to take a long look at his approach and attitude after his ’25 regular season ended after a withdrawal from the Wyndham Championship.
“It’s hard,” Kim said. “When you’re not playing well you just have to kind of play events. You don’t get to take time off and then reflect and keep going. You actually have to keep playing even when your momentum is not as well.
“But mid-course, mid-year, I just told myself, once this year is done I get to really see myself, and I’ve made a few changes, and as those changes were made, I got to see bits and pieces kind of come together. As time kept going and as I kept working, everything just is slowly coming back together.”
Again, Kim didn’t detail what those changes are, though he spoke of “scar tissue on certain shots” and his confidence disappearing. But sometimes players can’t just will or work themselves out of a slump.
“You can’t try to change too much of trying to become the best player you can be,” Kim said. “The margins are so small out here, and you just got to keep your head down and I’ve been doing that.”
Kim opened the FedEx Fall schedule with an unimpressive finish of 72nd in the Procore Championship, and he has to push on without being able to play in his beloved Las Vegas event, which he won twice in the ’23 calendar year.
Maybe Mississippi will become a new favorite. Kim is 10 under through 36 holes, and on Friday his 66 included an eagle he made on the par-5 fifth with a 20-foot putt to go along with six birdies. Among the top 15 players on the board—led by Garrick Higgo at 13 under—Kim has enjoyed the most success.
“I am very grateful my hard work has produced some good scores,” Kim said, “but as I keep going the rest of the fall until next year, my mindset is more focused on putting work on my progress and practices and let results come instead of trying to force those results just because I worked hard.”
