Tom Kim was almost late for his 8 a.m. tee time with Rickie Fowler at Sunday’s Genesis Invitational. The PGA Tour filmed a video of him running through the crowd to his first teeing ground, which sparked some pretty hilarious comments on social media about why he was late.
One of the most common threads was that In-N-Out was wreaking havoc once again, as many believed it led to Tiger Woods’ departure.
But as it turns out, it was something very simple I almost caused him to According to the PGA Tour, you could face a penalty.
Kim was on the putting green and had plenty of time before heading to the teeing ground. But he and his caddy, Paul Tesori, started chatting with his fellow players and quickly arrived with less than 60 seconds to go.
“I was at the farthest end of the green,” Kim said. “If I wasn’t there at the time of the announcement, there would be a two-stroke penalty, but today I’m hitting even par instead of two under. I made sure I wasn’t behind and literally 10, 15 seconds. Later he called me to tea. I was lucky. I’m never late for tea time.”
Kim shot a 2-under 69 on Sunday and finished the tournament at 5 under.
The practice green at Riviera Country Club surrounds the clubhouse, but of course he was on the practice green farthest from the first tee. Still, Kim arrived on time with just a few seconds to spare.
Usually there’s too much time before teeing off, but that wasn’t the case last week.
“It’s always too early,” he said. “But we were so deep in conversation. Yesterday we had a tough finish, so we were talking about what we could have done better. I’m sure Ricky [Fowler] I was like, “Hmm, why isn’t Tom here?” ”
Kim will never forget how she almost missed her tea time. And thankfully his increased heart rate didn’t completely derail him. He finished the day with five birdies and three bogeys. His best performance was T17 in five games with WM Phoenix this season.
Savannah Lee Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through.If you want to know more about golf, please follow us. @_PlayingThrough On all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirls and Instagram @savannah_leigh_sports.
