Tom Kim has been the lifeblood of the Presidents Cup for the International team this week, and as his team tried to claw back from an 8-6 deficit Saturday afternoon, he was engaged in a tough alternate-shot battle with Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele.
On the seventh hole of that match, a par 3, his partner Si Woo Kim’s birdie putt ended close enough that Kim thought it should have been conceded by the Americans.
Alas, it was not, and after making the par, Kim did not hesitate to show his displeasure … twice. Watch his peeved reaction here:
You giving this one to the @IntlTeam? pic.twitter.com/wmhZA5e9iD
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 28, 2024
Hell yeah! It’s the old “inside the leather” complaint, the likes of which we’ve seen from Justin Thomas in the past.
Now, you could easily say that complaining about this stuff is bush league—there’s no real that you have to concede even the shortest putt, and Kim’s Internationals teammate, Jason Day, once said that he’d only concede short putts to a player who had never missed one in his life.
But by walking back and making his point, head shaking the whole time, Kim was ratcheting up the tension in a match he was feeling his team needs to win.
That’s been his style all week, starting when he fought a shouting battle with Scheffler on Thursday. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn’t, but it proves he can be both the hero AND the villain of this Presidents Cup.
Main Image: Jared C. Tilton