RIDGELAND, SOUTH CAROLINA | Between shots in their first competitive round together Thursday at the PGA Tour’s CJ Cup in South Carolina, Rory McIlroy found himself asking 20-year-old Tom Kim questions.
Where does he live?
Where does he practice?
Chick-fil-A or Popeyes?
“He told me he hasn't had Popeye's yet. So, I'm like, ‘No, you've got to have Popeyes. I think it's better than Chick-fil-A,’ ” McIlroy said, demonstrating that he’s as free with his opinions on fast-food matters as with questions about the PGA Tour’s ongoing battle with LIV Golf.
Perhaps McIlroy just prefers his chicken sandwiches with mayonnaise.
Kim and McIlroy are a generation apart, 13 years separating them, but both are in ascendant stages of their careers. Kim, a South Korean, has burst into prominence with his electrifying presence and play during the past three months. McIlroy, a Northern Irishman, ascended for the ninth different time to the top of the Official World Golf Ranking, a re-ascendance of sorts.
Being grouped with McIlroy (and Rickie Fowler) during the first two sun-splashed days at Congaree Golf Club was another residual benefit to Kim’s rocket ride to No. 15 in the world ranking and the game’s new fan favorite because of his joyful and seemingly genuine exuberance.
McIlroy found himself tuning in to the Presidents Cup last month to watch Kim, who in acting his age with his teammates, became the inspiration core of his International team. Maybe McIlroy sees something of himself in Kim, but more likely he sees an exceptional talent taking shape.
Together, they are a Times Square-bright walking billboard for what the PGA Tour has to offer.
“We don't need to make comparisons quite yet. Just let him turn into the person he's going to be, and I think that will be good enough to have a hell of a career.”
RORY McILROY ON TOM KIM
Kim slipped into McIlroy’s pre-tournament question-and-answer session Wednesday and took the microphone to ask his own question.
He asked McIlroy how he handled his early success, and McIlroy gave him a wise answer: manage your time; remember what got you where you are; don’t get distracted by all that’s coming at you.
“That's the one thing I would say is just managing your time and not forgetting why you're in this position and why you're so lucky to get to play with me the next two days,” McIlroy said, his deadpan delivery almost obscuring his humor.
“That was a joke that went over everyone’s head,” McIlroy said.
Humor aside, McIlroy was doing two things at once: speaking from experience and talking about where he found himself last year.
McIlroy is the tour’s radiant star again – as much for how he has taken a leadership role in the changing sport as for his athletic elegance on the course – but he has ridden the sport’s inevitable waves. A little more than a year ago, McIlroy had fallen to No. 16 in the world and looked at times like a man searching for his misplaced keys.
Gifted with the natural ability to hit high, drawing bombs off the tee – Kim shook his head in amazement at times watching McIlroy hit drivers at Congaree – McIlroy committed briefly to hitting left-to-right shots last year at the suggestion of coach Pete Cowen.
It was akin to Steph Curry deciding to shoot left-handed. Though it worked briefly – McIlroy won the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship that way – it was a passing fancy. By the time McIlroy tearfully explained his 1-3-1 performance in Europe’s Ryder Cup loss in September 2021, he had bottomed out.
“I sort of went down a path that I realized wasn't for me,” McIlroy said. “That was really it, just trying to get back ownership of my game, my golf swing and being OK with doing it my way. I think that was the big thing.”
Though he didn’t win a major this year, McIlroy finished in the top 10 of each and won the FedEx Cup, resetting his sights on bumping Scottie Scheffler out of the No. 1 spot that he had held since the spring.
Kim listened Wednesday as McIlroy talked about the challenge of being No. 1 and how he has found it harder to stay there than to get there, comparing it to a former heavyweight champion trying to regain the crown. He'll spend his 107th week atop the world ranking – fourth-most all-time – and has a simple answer for how many weeks he would like to be No. 1.
“332,” McIlroy said after his formal interview, smiling and letting the number hang in the air.
Greg Norman, the polarizing force behind LIV Golf, was No. 1 for 331 weeks in his career, ranking second only to Tiger Woods’ 683.
Not yet old enough to legally buy a beer in the U.S., Kim is expected to crack the top 10 soon. He wasn’t into golf when McIlroy ascended to No. 1 for the first time in 2012, but he is wise enough to seek the counsel of the game’s most popular active player.
When McIlroy drove the green on the 360-yard, par-4 15th hole Thursday, framing his white golf ball like a star in the brilliant blue sky, Kim, who had laid up on the hole, was awestruck. Even McIlroy was surprised how far he hit the ball, apologizing to Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas and Keegan Bradley, who were on the green when his ball rolled onto the putting surface.
At another hole, Kim marveled when McIlroy asked for his ball to stop as it neared the end of a 380-yard rollout area.
“He was saying, ‘Sit.’ I was like, ‘Really? Like, sit?'” said Kim, who eventually finished T11 six shots behind McIlroy.
Kim and McIlroy shot 65 on Thursday, but they did it in different ways, leading Kim to ask whether he should chase swing speed to gain more distance, a path littered with dented careers.
“I'm like, ‘No, no, no, no.’ I think as he gets a little older and maybe a touch stronger, he'll get that naturally, but I was like, ‘Do not go down that path. You're good the way you are,’ ” McIlroy said.
“Just based on my own experience, I don't think it's something he needs to chase right now, because, like, he hits it so well and his fundamentals are so good that if he starts to chase it, I worry that that would get off and then it affects the rest of his game.”
Asked whether he can compare Kim to anyone else, McIlroy said he’s similar to Hideki Matsuyama, who began to win early.
Then McIlroy put up a stop sign.
“Look, over the last 50 years there's only been one other player to come out and win twice before his 21st birthday (Tiger Woods), so he's made a really good start,” McIlroy said.
And pick his own chicken sandwich.
Top: Tom Kim (right) and Rory McIlroy have much to discuss, from handling expectations to chicken sandwiches.
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