‘Tiger never checked’: Tom Kim isn’t interested how much money he won at Wyndham Championship
Cash doesn’t rule everything around Joohyung Kim.
After notching his maiden PGA Tour victory at the Wyndham Championship on Sunday, Kim became a 20-year-old multi-millionaire, taking home $1,314,000, which brings his total earnings this season to roughly $2.5 million.
But the South Korean doesn’t care how much he added to his bank account.
“I haven’t checked. I don’t even know how much I even won,” Kim said Tuesday on SiriusXM’s Hitting the Green. “Tiger never checked. If I can just play well, everything will take care of itself. I’m not even interested in how much it is.”
Instead, the world No. 21 is focused on making more history. Not only did Kim add his name to an illustrious name of PGA Tour winners, claim a full Tour card for next season and a earn spot in this year’s FedExCup playoffs, but he also became the Tour’s first winner to be born in the 2000s, was the youngest Tour winner since Jordan Spieth at the 2013 John Deere Classic and was the first player since hole-by-hole tracking began in ’83 to record a quadruple bogey on a tournament’s first hole and then go on to win.
Full-field tee times from FedEx St. Jude Championship
However, unlike Kim, there are many players who have chosen money over legacy by bolting to the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit.
Kim won’t be one of them.
“I mean, for me, our team, we’ve talked about this, but it’s always about playing the PGA Tour,” Kim said Tuesday in a press conference at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. “When I was younger I would see Tiger win on the PGA Tour, not somewhere else. So for me, that was always the goal. I felt like when I would one day get really old and not be able to play the game anymore, I would want to at least feel comfortable with retiring and say I gave it — I played with the best players in the world.
“My goal and our team, the goal has always been to be here. I’m glad that I achieved that and hopefully, I’ll be here for a very long time.”