When Si Woo Kim began his third round of the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open he was a distant seven shots back of leader Peter Uihlein. Through just five holes he was within two, suddenly in contention on moving day…until he wasn’t.
Kim opened his round with five consecutive birdies at TPC Summerlin, rolling in putts from 14,10, 22, 18 and 13 feet to reach 11-under. Despite being a notoriously poor putter (Kim ranked 159th in strokes-gained/putting last season), the 23-year-old was unconscious, putting his round on #59watch despite the sixth hole being WAY too early for #59watch.
But then, disaster struck for Kim, who immediately proved any hole before the 10th is indeed too soon for whispers of a sub-60 round. After a wayward drive at the 416-yard par 4, and some ugliness up near the green, the 2017 Players Champion walked off the sixth hole at even par for his round. No, that’s not a typo. A quintuple-bogey nine sent Kim all the way back down the leader board in a matter of minutes:
Ouch. That dropped Kim back to six-under, undoing all his impressive work from the opening five holes and dropping him to outside the top 40. According to PGATour.com’s shot tracker, it looked like a bad drive and then some woeful chipping and/or putting up near the green:
To Kim’s credit, he went on to shoot 2-under for the remainder of his round to sit in a tie for 25th at 8-under, six shots off the lead.
