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Tom Kim’s gold medal in Asian Games earns him South Korean military reprieve (Zhe Ji/Getty Images)
Tom Kim left Medinah in a hurry after winning his singles match to finish his week at the Presidents Cup 4-1-0. His singular effort, unfortunately, was not enough to lift his International Team to victory.
The reason for his quick departure was to get to Japan for the 2026 Asian Games where he would represent another team, South Korea. Winning a gold medal there would hold even more significance than lifting a Presidents Cup trophy.
Winning gold in the Asian Games (or any medal in the Olympics) earns any able-bodied male recipients an exemption from a mandatory 18- to 21-month stint in the South Korean military. For a tour golfer, that’s the kind of impediment that can derail a professional career.
Just ask another former Presidents Cupper, Sang-moon Bae, who hasn’t been able to get his game back to where it was after having to enlist just weeks after the 2015 Presidents Cup in South Korea. He was ranked No. 68 in the world when he left (the two-time PGA Tour winner had been as high as 26th) and came back ranked 1,869th.
Nearly two years out of golf took its toll. He returned to the PGA Tour fulltime in the 2017-18 season, making only five cuts in 17 starts en route to losing his card. He regained it for the 2018-19 season by winning the 2018 Albertson’s Boise Open on the Korn Ferry Tour, but was unable to retain it making only eight of 22 cuts. He’s never climbed higher than No. 327 in the world.
“I’ve kind of lost my feel how to play golf. Not how to swing — I forgot how to play golf,” Bae told the AP in 2018.
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Kim knew what was at stake when he arrived in Japan on Tuesday morning for the Asian Games. Individual or team gold would let him avoid lengthy military service and require only four weeks of light basic training instead. He shot 67-66-65-64 to shoot 18-under and win by three shots over Japan’s Higa Kazuki, China’s Wenyi Ding and Thailand’s Sadom Kaewkanjana.
Kim said he received a text message from his Jupiter Links TGL teammate Tiger Woods before the final round: “Just be you. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Come on!” Kim roared as his knocked in his 4-footer for par at the last at Kasugai CC’s East course. His South Korean teammates joined him on the green and draped him in a Korean flag, even though they lost out on earning military exemptions themselves by two shots to the team from China. It proved particularly costly for fellow PGA Tour pro S.H. Kim, who struggled with nine bogeys in the final round to shoot a 73 and cost him his own exemption. S.H. Kim is 28 and out of chances to avoid reporting for service.
“It’s a crazy feeling. I’m just glad it’s over,” Kim told Reuters. “This day was the longest day I think I’ve ever had in my life. It’s only been six, five hours but it is definitely the longest, and I’m just glad it’s done.”
Kim told the Associated Press that he tried not to banish the stakes from his mind during the final round: “I tried not to think about it. I just tried to play (the) best for my country. It’s a big stepping stone. I think the pressure that I felt this week, I’ll be able to implement it in my upcoming seasons.”
Brian Rolapp chatted with Donald Trump at Medinah (Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Rolapp’s plea: let there be light
It turns out that PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp was doing more on the final day of the Presidents Cup than just taking up space at the back of the first tee alongside President Trump at Medinah.
There was more than small talk going on, based on Trump’s own social media post on Saturday in which he released the contents of a letter that Rolapp had written to him at the conclusion of the week.
The subject? Daylight Saving Time.
Specifically, the “Sunshine Protection Act,” which is a bill that has passed the House that would mandate a permanent Daylight Saving Time in the United States, with the clocks no longer “falling back” to International Standard time each November.
After pandering with the trite and overused phrase “growing the game” in lauding Trump for attending the Presidents Cup, Rolapp got down to business in his letter: “I also wanted to put in writing what I expressed to you personally: the tour’s strong support for the Sunshine Protection Act.”
Rolapp went on to explain why he is advocating for passage of the act — because it gives recreational golfers more time to play golf at the end of the day. He also noted
