2021 WGC-Match Play: Top 10 power rankings at Austin CC
After this week, I don’t think there’s a tournament in the world that Sungjae Im hasn’t had the opportunity to play in yet. He makes his tournament debut after narrowly missing out on qualifying in 2019 as a PGA Tour rookie and the 2020 tournament getting canceled.
I’m going to pretend that Im has been waiting to play in this event for years now and that he’s fired up to make some birdies at Austin Country Club.
More analytically speaking, I like Im to finally hit another gear in what’s been a solid 2021.
The Cal Ripken of the PGA Tour has already teed it up nine times this year, making the cut all seven times when there was one and finishing T-32nd or higher all but once.
The 22-year-old South Korean gets a good group stage draw, at least as far as seeds go. If it wasn’t a random draw, he’d have No. 17, 49, and 50 in his group. Instead, he draws No. 31, No. 36, and No. 50.
Im will still have to work to move on, though. The Frenchman No. 31 Victor Perez is relatively unknown to the American audience but was on a tear last year on the European Tour and finished T-9th a couple of weeks ago at the Players Championship.
No. 36 Marc Leishman has struggled of late but has had good results in this event and won’t go down easy. No. 50 Russell Henley has three top-fives in the 2020-21 season.
Im may go 2-1, but it’ll shake out in his favor.
He’ll survive and advance to the round of 16 where he’ll knock out the top dog, Dustin Johnson. Yeah, I said it. Im is clearly a big-time talent, but this would be one of his top achievements to date. DJ doesn’t have a good record at the WGC-Match Play, relatively speaking. He’s the favorite to win at Augusta again next month, but he’s going down early in Austin.
Im has one wore win in him in the quarterfinals. In a refreshing battle of guys who don’t need to hit it a mile to compete, Im will outlast Webb Simpson in a close one.
The fun stops here as Collin Morikawa dispenses of Im in the semifinals.
Im has his work cut out for him again in the third-place match where world No. 3 Jon Rahm is too much for him Sunday.
Some more reasons to like Im is his driving accuracy (69.89%, 8th), greens in regulation proficiency (69.7%, 37th), and sitting fifth in hitting greens ahead of regulation when “going for it” based on PGA Tour stats (75.41%).