Under Pressure: Tom Kim Contends For Medal As Military Exemption Looms

The Olympic golf competition is a little like the velodrome cycling races in which the competitors cruise and feint until a ferocious dash to the finish line. Halfway through the golf at these Games, a rain-softened Le National has offered little resistance as the best players in the world jockey for position. Atop the leaderboard at -11 are three of the sweetest swingers in the game: Xander Schauffele, Hideki Matsuyama and Tommy Fleetwood. Jon Rahm is in fourth place, two shots from the podium. Lurking are big-time talents Joaquin Niemann (-6), Scottie Scheffler (-6), Matt Fitzpatrick (-6), Jason Day (-5) and Rory McIlroy (-5), among others.

During Saturday’s third round, the peloton will begin pedaling harder. When it comes to Olympic golf, fourth place has the same meaning as 60th. There are no cash payouts to protect, no FedEx Cup points to hoard. Aggressive play now borders on mandatory.

“As the week goes on, it becomes more of a mental challenge,” says Fleetwood. “Obviously you know that [the top] three places are what is going to decide your week. Usually, you finish top five, top 10, you’ve had a great week, but [here] it don’t mean anything.” 

This rare opportunity to play for your homeland and for a medal offers new layers of pressure but one player on the leaderboard faces a unique stress-fest. Tom Kim, tied for fifth at -8, is playing for his future. The cherubic 22-year-old is representing South Korea where every healthy adult male under 35 must serve a compulsory 21-month stint in the military. Winning a Masters or U.S. Open will not exempt him from service under the Orwellian-sounding Military Manpower Administration. Neither will winning a FedEx Cup or Race to Dubai. The only way Kim—the youngest three-time winner on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods—can play his way out of this career abyss is by winning an Olympic medal. (A gold at the Asian Games, which has traditionally been a competition for amateurs, also counts. In 2023, pros were allowed to play and Kim’s countryman Sungjae Im, then 25, and Si Woo Kim, 28, took advantage of this window by leading Korea to victory in the team competition; there is rumbling that the Asian Games will go back to ams-only in the near future.)

The looming military stint is Kim’s least-favorite topic and he bats away queries with curt platitudes. Following his second-round 68, I asked Kim how he can not think about the larger meaning of an Olympic medal. “Good question,” he said with a tight smile. “I’m just trying to focus on my game. I’m a competitor and we all play for the same thing. It’s just golf. So I’m just trying to put my head down and play.”

He feigned ignorance on when exactly he would be conscripted or how he might possibly get out of it: “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you.”

But, Tom, this is kind of a big deal, right?

“A hundred percent. Like, I’m not trying to lie or anything like that. I really don’t know. I’ve been over in the U.S. for so long, I just keep on going.”

Tom Kim has emerged as one of the most likable stars in the game. (GETTY IMAGES/Keyur Khamar)

The specter of Sang Moon Bae haunts every talented young Korean golfer. Bae was a birdie machine who won two Tour events by age 25. A couple of months after representing the Internationals in the 2015 Presidents Cup, he lost his appeal to the Military Manpower Administration and had to report for duty as a rifleman. He was awakened at dawn every morning for calisthenics and long jogs. He was forced to study military theory and spend countless hours honing his marksmanship. (Sami Valimaki, currently in 19th place at these Games, served six months in the Finnish army at the outset of his golf career and describes his training succinctly: “Shooting heads.”) Bae has been a non-factor in the seven years since he left the army. “My swing is better,” he once lamented to the AP’s Doug Ferguson, “but I’ve kind of lost my feel for how to play golf. Not how to swing—I forgot how to play golf.”

That’s one problem Kim doesn’t have as he has displayed a Spiethian ability to save shots as a finesse player in a game increasingly defined by power. “He doesn’t hit it miles but he hits it far enough,” says Ben An, also representing Korea at these Games. “He hits it very straight. He has great touch around the greens. Great putter.  I’d love to see what he can do in the next 10, 15, 20 years.” With a touch of wistfulness, An adds, “He is a star already, so we’ll see what happens in the next couple years.” 

Korea’s most decorated golfers, K.J. Choi and Y.E. Yang, did their military service in their early 20s before they had established themselves as pro golfers. In addition to his Tour success, Kim has won the Singapore International and Indian Open and boasts two victories on the Asian Tour and a pair on the Korean Tour. (He turned pro at 15.) Kim was a jovial presence on the second season of Netflix’s Full Swing and, with his easy smile, he makes an excellent goodwill ambassador for his homeland. But his high-profile almost works against him in egalitarian Korea. “It sucks you have to give up golf,” says An, “but the other Koreans would say, ‘Everyone goes [into service] so why do we get exempt from it?’”

So Kim plays on, with so much hanging in the balance. There is no guarantee he will get another chance at a medal in four years in Los Angeles. Even competitors from other nations who covet Olympic glory find themselves rooting for Kim. “It’s a tough one,” says Australia’s Min Woo Lee. “It seems like [Korean golfers] have a lot more pressure than what I have and what other people have because it impacts their lives quite hard. I mean, hopefully he gets it done. He’s definitely good enough to get a gold medal. He’s a cracker of a golfer.”

But will Kim crack under the Olympian strain? That is the most intriguing question as the golf competition roars into the weekend.

Top Photo Caption: Tom Kim, 22, needs an Olympic medal to avoid mandatory military service. (GETTY IMAGES/Andrew Redington)

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