2021 CJ Cup: Top 10 power rankings at The Summit Club

Sungjae Im won by four shots last week donning a CJ logo on his hat. The folks at CJ Brands would have loved to see their sponsored player get it done during their own tournament, but I’m sure they love to see Im arrive in good form.

Across town in Las Vegas, Im fired 63-65-70-62 at TPC Summerlin to reach 24-under, besting Matthew Wolff in solo second place. It was the lowest winning score since Webb Simpson was 24-under in 2013.

Im was on 59 watch on the par-71 layout Sunday when he reached 9-under on his round through 13 holes. That was when he began to separate from the field and from there he played smart golf to close with five pars.

The South Korean talent led the field in strokes gained tee to green (10.488 total) but showed no flaws all week, ranking 13th or better in each SG category.

Im made just four bogeys and nothing worse.

Im came on the scene in the 2018-19 PGA Tour season and won Rookie of the Year honors despite no wins. Im was ultra-consistent, and it paid off with a victory in 2019-20 at the Honda Classic.

He couldn’t quite get it done in 2020-21, but the 23-year-old’s game wasn’t far off. That was evident when he put it all together last week in Nevada.

Im explained how he’s acclimating to a lot of changes (for the good) in his life.

“Well my caddie Billy, we started a couple weeks prior to the Olympic games and he’s been a very good help to me, we’ve been a very good team working together, communicating,” Im said via a translator as quoted by ASAP Sports. “My trainer Andrew we started on the Phoenix week, but as I got to my second and third year on TOUR I felt the importance of conditioning and keeping myself stronger and healthy, so we’ve been working really hard and I’m glad it all turned out well.

“Buying a house in Atlanta, obviously hotel to hotel was not easy but having somewhere to settle down, to have my house and Atlanta is great to commute, huge airport, a lot of flights to everywhere, so it all came together very well.”

Not that it’s relevant this week, but Im has made eight straight cuts. He advanced to the Tour Championship in the FedEx Cup Playoffs last year thanks to T-16th at The Northern Trust and solo third at the BMW Championship.

Im ranked 16th last season in SG off the tee (.526) and is a fairway machine.