BLAINE, Minn. — Conventional wisdom suggests ignoring the leaderboard and focusing solely on the next shot. Yet on Friday at TPC Twin Cities, Michael Kim was acutely aware of the history unfolding.
Weeks earlier at the Evian Championship, Haeran Ryu was unaware she had carded a record-setting 60 until after her round concluded. Kim, however, stood on the 15th tee needing four birdies over his final four holes to break the 60 barrier. The 33-year-old, ranked 57th in the world, delivered a flawless 12-under 59 — just the 16th sub-60 round in PGA Tour history — to seize a 14-under lead as the afternoon wave began.
Kim capped the historic round by draining a 24-foot, 4-inch birdie putt on the par-5 18th, a putt he attacked with singular intent.
“It was just really uphill,” Kim said. “It didn’t look like there was a ton of break. I played it about a ball outside the left. I tend to leave those short when it’s that uphill, and the last thing was just get it there, just don’t leave it short. It got there pretty easy.”
Long before the galleries swelled for Scottie Scheffler’s late tee time, Kim teed off at 7:07 a.m. local time in the third group of the day. He ignited his round with five consecutive birdies on holes 3 through 7, added another on the ninth, and turned in a scintillating 29.
Entering the week, Kim’s season had been steady but unspectacular, highlighted by a T2 at the Valero Texas Open. He arrived on the heels of three straight missed cuts, including at The Open at Royal Birkdale, and nearly skipped this sixth consecutive start. A desire to climb the FedEx Cup standings before the playoffs ultimately drove his decision to travel north.
After an opening 69 complicated by a right-to-left wind, Kim consulted with coach Sean Foley and mastered those shots on Friday. Birdies on 10 and 12 set the stage for the final act. Standing on the 15th tee, the arithmetic was simple: four holes, four birdies needed.
He converted a 12-footer on 15, a 14-footer on 16 as the crowd began to gather, and a 17-footer on the par-3 17th. On the 18th tee, the calculus shifted.
“I kind of remember thinking on 18 that you have to go for it, 60 or 61 doesn’t really make too much of a difference,” Kim said.
The finishing hole is reachable in two, though water guards the entire right flank and fronts the green. Kim opted for a conservative layup after a “bailout” drive, wedging to 24 feet and rolling in the putt. It marked the first sub-60 score on Tour since Jake Knapp’s 59 at the 2024 Cognizant Classic.
Kim led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Putting, requiring just 21 putts and holing eight from 10 feet or longer.
“When I play tournament golf, I’m most proud of the moments where it’s, you know, this is kind of where you have to step up, you have to take the shots, you have to make the swings and really go for the shots you’re trying to hit and not kind of be too protective,” Kim said. “I made a really nice birdie putt on 16. It had a lot of break to it and it went in dead-center. There’s a lot of water on 17 and 18 and I just kind of told myself like, this is the way — this is the moment to get into the history books and let’s go for it.”
A decade into his PGA Tour career with a lone victory at the 2018 John Deere Classic, Kim now holds a prime position for a second title. But with 36 holes remaining and Scheffler still on the course, he remains grounded.
“Thirty-six holes to go,” Kim noted. “But first, he was off to grab lunch.”
“>
