Weekly Recap: Si Woo Comes Through

When you read about Si Woo Kim, the word "youngest" appears often.  Sometimes it's hard to remember he's only 25 years old. After all, he is now in his sixth full season on the PGA Tour.

Kim captured The American Express title at PGA West on Sunday, joining Collin Morikawa as the only three-time winners on Tour under the age of 26.

That broke a long drought for Kim, who hadn't won since 2017, when he became the, yes, youngest to ever win THE PLAYERS Championship. That allowed him to become only the fourth player with multiple PGA Tour wins before turning 22, the others being Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and Jordan Spieth. That's pretty good company.

The South Korean's first win came at the 2016 Wyndham Championship just after turning 21.

And if you go back a few more years to 2012, Kim became, again, the youngest golfer ever to graduate Q School at 17 years and 5 months. He was so young that he couldn't even join the Tour, which had a rule stipulating you had to be 18 before getting your card.

It's all amazing stuff.

This is also Kim: He has missed the cut in 36 percent of his PGA Tour starts (59 of 164), he's missed the cut in nine of 16 career majors, he's never had a top-10 in a major, he's never so much as cracked the top 25 in the world rankings and he's finished only one year inside the top 50.

So which Kim is the real Kim? The answer, likely, is both. It's far from rare for a young player, even one en route to greatness, to have many highs and lows at a young age. And when you factor in that Kim has been doing all this with some cultural and language barriers, it becomes more understandable.

This win came at a very fortuitous time for Kim, whose three-year exemption into majors for winning the 2017 PLAYERS expired with November's Masters. The win on Sunday doesn't carry the same weight, but it will get him into the Masters in April. He's also back inside the top 50 OWGR at No. 48 after falling outside the top 100 late last year. His career best is 28th, which he reached after winning THE PLAYERS.

This season, Kim has shown numerous signs of progress. He's made seven of his nine cuts, including at The Masters. He's never finished a season in the top 100 in greens in regulation but ranks 73rd at the moment. He's ranked 103rd in Strokes Gained: Putting, better than any of his year-end rankings. Yes, throughout his career he's been terrible at getting the ball on the green and in the hole -- a pretty poor combination for a professional golfer.

At the Amex, Kim ranked first in the field in GIR and eighth in putting. He birdied Nos. 16 and 17 to catch and pass Patrick Cantlay, who had shattered the PGA West Stadium Course record with an 11-under 61. Then he parred 18 with one final, routine green in regulation.

That's how good Kim can be. And that's how good he's rarely been.

So is Kim bound to remain a conundrum? Or, at 25, is he now ready to turn the corner into at minimum consistency and perhaps greatness?

In the past, we'd have chosen the former. Now, we're not so sure.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Patrick Cantlay
When you break a course record, it's a big deal. When you break a course record by more than one stroke, that's, well, wow. Cantlay made an astounding 152 feet of putts in making 11 birdies and seven pars for a 61. Cantlay has recovered from his late-2020 mini-slump. By finishing a shot behind Kim, he now has a win and a runner-up in his past four events, with a top-20s at the Masters and Tournament of Champions in between. He won't be at Torrey Pines this week, though he now has to be given fantasy consideration whenever and wherever he plays.

Cameron Davis
Regular readers will know our affinity for Davis; unfortunately, it's always been an unrequited love. He was ranked 217th in the world before notching his best finish on Tour with a solo third to move to 142nd. It would be nice to say that the switch has now been flipped and Davis has turned a corner. But after a few years of no switch flipping, it's too soon to say that now. Especially since the mediocre putter ranked fourth in Strokes Gained: Putting on the week.
 
Tony Finau
He had the lead early on Sunday, but of course Finau's longstanding problem has been having the lead late on Sunday. Two back-nine bogeys relegated him to another close call – finding the water after a perfect tee ball on the par-5 11th (and then missing a three-footer for par) was particularly galling. So, he's left with a solo fourth and more proclamations of, "He will win soon." Lather, rinse, repeat.

Abraham Ancer
Ancer predictably rebounded from a rare missed cut at the Sony with a tie for fifth, although he needed to birdie the final three holes to get there.  He is skipping Torrey Pines, which is probably a smart move for one of the shorter hitters on Tour.

Doug Ghim
The tie for fifth was the best finish of the 24-year-old's PGA Tour career. Ghim has made only 37 starts, but this was his first top-10. He had four top-25s in six tournaments during the fall season, so this may be a real breakthrough we are seeing.  Ghim is up to a personal-best 278th in the world rankings.

Paul Casey
Casey tied for eighth, with a rare double-bogey on the third hole blunting any real chance he had to make a run. It was a great first tournament of 2021 for Casey, but he's coming off a year in which he managed only one top-10 – albeit a runner-up at the PGA Championship. Let's wait and see where Casey goes from here before jumping back on the bandwagon.

Francesco Molinari
In his first start of 2021, Molinari tied for eighth. He also tied for 15th at the Houston Open in the fall. While these may not sound like much for the former top-10 player, they indicate real progress for someone who has plummeted outside the top-100 in the world rankings. This top-10 moved Molinari to 110th OWGR.

Chris Kirk
Almost as impressive as securing his card at the last possible moment in the final start of his major medical extension last week, Kirk kept his foot on the gas at the Amex. He tied for 16th and now is nearing a return to the top-100 in the world at 119th. There are only certain tracks where the short-hitting Kirk can really compete, but there are enough of them to give him lots of chances.

Gary Woodland
Woodland had fallen to 40th in the world rankings. His tie for 16th was his best finish since July. He had been working through some back issues and a significant weight loss, so maybe he is now past them. We'll know more after Woodland tees it up this week at Torrey Pines.

Kramer Hickok
The 28-year-old is now in his third season on Tour and we might be seeing a breakthrough. Hickok tied for 21st, his fourth top-25 in seven starts in 2020-21. The first two – Bermuda and the Dominican Republic – were not much. But the fields were better the past two weeks at the Sony and the Amex.

Brendan Steele
After another devastating finish at Waialae last week, Steele kept it together at the Amex, impressively tying for 21st. It might've been a good week to take a break, but he instead forged ahead. Steele will now take this coming week off.

Rickie Fowler
A tie for 21st in his first start of the new year has to be viewed with great optimism, especially since Fowler zoomed up the leaderboard on Sunday. It was his first top-25 since early August It was a terrible putting week for Fowler, who lost strokes to the field the final three days. You could spin that either way – good week even without good putting or Fowler still is having putting issues. For all his effort, he slipped from 60th to 61st OWGR.

Matthew Wolff
Wolff tied for 40th in his first start of the year, that after finishing 2020 with 73-T50-MC. This weak stretch is probably nothing. But there's always a question in the back of your mind when a super young player soars very far very fast. Wolff will try again this week at Torrey Pines, a track that should suit in long-hitting game.
 
Harry Hall
The 23-year-old Englishman and Korn Ferry player made his first PGA Tour cut, tying for 47th. It was only his second try after MCing last year at Torrey Pines. Hall notched three Korn Ferry top-10s in the latter stages of last year, so he bears watching. A very late bloomer, he's played only 13 OWGR events in his life. He's now up to No. 384.

Brooks Koepka
It was Koepka's first start of the year, but missing the cut – by three strokes – was not to be expected. So it's hard to know what to expect from Koepka this week at Torrey Pines.

Phil Mickelson
The tournament ambassador missed the cut by a lot. Sure, there's a chance for an occasional high finish – Mickelson had a runner-up and a third last year – but the likelihood is that there will be a lot of bad weeks ahead, with another probably coming this week in San Diego. Mickelson fell to 72nd in the world.

Tyrrell Hatton
There are times that Hatton can look like the best player in the world – and Sunday was one of them. Playing in the final group of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, Hatton smoked Rory McIlroy by six strokes to run away with the first European Tour event of 2021. He thus moved to a career-best No. 5 in the world rankings – and that is ahead of McIlroy. You could argue that because the Englishman missed the cut at all three majors last year that his ranking is inflated. But he also won at Bay Hill, and that is the real deal.

Jason Scrivener
McIlroy's poor Sunday allowed the 31-year-old Australian to finish second and notch his best Euro finish ever and move to a personal-best 114th in the world rankings. Scrivener had three top-10s and three top-25s in the second half of last year, the best sustained stretch of his career.

Rory McIlroy
While Hatton overtook him in the world rankings, McIlroy was able to hang on to the seventh position as Bryson DeChambeau slipped to eighth. He had finished second twice and third twice in his four most recent visits to Abu Dhabi but he's never won. This seemed like a real chance, but instead he extended his winless stretch to 14 months. McIlroy now jets back to the States to play in the Farmers Insurance Open.