2022 BMW Championship: Top 10 Power Rankings at Wilmington CC
A little over two weeks ago, Joohyung “Tom” Kim wasn’t even a full-fledged PGA Tour member. He was playing on a special temporary exemption and was going to be ineligible for the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
That is, unless he won. At the final hour, the 20-year-old South Korean phenom won the season finale by five shots. His final round 61 featuring a front-nine 27 was the stuff of legends.
After a strong showing in his FedEx Cup Playoffs debut, he’s on the cusp of going from no postseason at all to the Tour Championship in less than a month.
Kim finished T-13th last week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He was in the top 20 and hung around contention for most of the week on a crowded leaderboard. Rounds of 66-70-66-69 left him just six off the pace.
This will be his seventh week of competition in a row. Fatigue might be setting in, but he’ll have plenty of time to rest in the fall.
Kim’s got to ride the hot streak for all it’s worth.
He seems to enjoy the grind, much like his friend and countryman, Sungjae Im.
“I love golf so much to a point where I enjoy not taking time off and just kind of thinking — I mean, when I’m home, I’m thinking about how can I get better at this game,” Kim was transcribed by Tee Scripts last week. “I enjoy the long hours of practice.”
Prior to Kim’s Wyndham win, he was 23rd at the U.S. Open, third at the Genesis Scottish Open, T-47th at The Open Championship, and seventh at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
Kim should enjoy the fact that he’s at a venue in Wilmington Country Club that the rest of the competition knows about as well as he does. Which is not well at all.
If pure talent can win out this week instead of course history, that helps his cause to win the BMW Championship.
Kim doesn’t have enough rounds recorded by ShotLink to qualify for PGA Tour statistical rankings. He’s gaining strokes in every category, including 1.004 per round tee to green.
He’s not crazy long off the tee, but distance is not a glaring weakness. Kim can pepper fairways and greens on most courses to death.