Korean golfer finished second at The Open 2023 despite flipping his ankle
Kim broke his right ankle the evening after the first round with a result of 74 strokes, after stumbling off the steps to the yard of the rented house during the Claret Jug Cup for The Open champion, this year at Royal Liverpool par71 in Hoylake. That night, he was bandaged and actively cared for by specialists.
Early the next morning, Kim considered giving up due to her swollen ankle, but promptly dismissed it when thinking about the valuable experiences from The Open. In the end, he still went to the field on crutches to compete in the second round. In the actual battle, Kim dropped his crutches and limped, reminiscent of Tiger Woods in his journey to the 2008 US Open championship despite a severe left knee injury. That leg, Kim hit 68 strokes, including four birdies and just one bogey.
After the battle, he returned to his accommodation and continued to recuperate, but after one more night, the situation had not improved much. At that time, Kim thought about giving up. Then after a moment of hesitation, he determined to stick to the end in the race for points at Royal Liverpool.
In the third round, Kim was still limping with her ankle bandaged and tight. However, he finished with 68 strokes, this time scoring six birdies and two bogeys. With that result, he got a score of -3, standing at T11. At that time, the top of the table was at -12, belonging to Brian Harman, and second place was at -7.
In the last round, Kim saw that her ankle was completely supported, so she decided to remove the support bandage. However, Kim failed at the start – bogey both opening holes. From then on, though, he scored an eagle on the 5th, along with six birdies for a 67. This is the best performance of the closing day. Thanks to that, Kim finished -7, finally standing in T2 with Sepp Straka and Jon Rahm when Harman set the championship milestone -13 at dawn 24/7 Hanoi time. With this result, Kim received $ 1,084 million and was the youngest runner-up The Open since 1976.
Kim was born on June 21, 2002, playing professionally since 2018 with the "stage name" Tom Kim. In August 2022, he only entered the PGA Tour with a conditional status thanks to finishing third in the Scottish Open - a co-sponsor with DP World Tour. But at the first try, at the Wyndham Championship, Kim was crowned champion at -20 points, five strokes away from runner-up.
Those two Junes, Kim won the Shriners Children's Open cup, and at the same time matched the feat of the legendary Woods established in 1996 - won two championships on the PGA Tour before the age of 21. But compared to the speed of taking two titles, Kim was even faster than Woods, because he only needed four awards while "Super Tiger" had to go through seven.
Kim has now passed 40 awards with a combined prize money of $8.54 million, including the recent The Open.
