Tom Kim cries after missing out on Olympic medal as PGA Tour star faces military service

With any award from Paris Olympic Diversions this summer, Tom Kim might have secured an exception from South Korea’s obligatory military benefit arrangement and delighted in an continuous PGA Visit career.

The 22-year-old starlet, as of now with three PGA Tour event triumphs, entered the ultimate evening of play on Sunday three strokes out of bronze.

But after a sad double-bogey wrap up on the 18th gap dashed his platform dreams, Kim was captured on video wiping absent tears within the Olympic clubhouse as his commencement toward enrollment proceeds. Kim plunged down to eight put, whereas Group Awesome Britain’s Tommy Fleetwood secured the silver award, fair a stroke behind American star Scottie Scheffler.

Whereas Kim went through much of his childhood around southeast Asia and Oceania, counting stretches in Australia, Thailand and the Philippines, he was born in South Korea’s capital city of Seoul and is the child of previous proficient golfer Kim Chang-ik. Kim was the Korean Visit Player of the Year in 2021 and earned a PGA Visit card for the 2022-23 season.

In spite of an old history, the present day state of South Korea was established in 1948 and confronted nearly prompt enmity from their northern neighbors, as North Korean strengths crossed the 38th parallel and propelled an attack less than two a long time afterward. The resulting three-year struggle claimed more than 2.5 million lives and in 1957, South Korea passed a required conscription law requiring able-bodied men to total an 18-21 month spell with the military between the ages of 18-35.

Korean men are required to be recruited by the age of 28, a troublesome age for many competitors who must take a long break amid the prime of their careers. One outstanding illustration is Kim’s compatriot Bae Sang-moon, who won PGA occasions in 2013 and 2014 but was constrained into a 21-month enrollment period the taking after year, posting fair one T-45 wrap up within the 17 occasions upon his return and briefly losing his Visit card.
 At just 22 years old, Kim has two additional opportunities to excuse himself from service, the 2026 Asian Games in Japan and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and the three-time PGA Tour event winner has opted not to consider the ramifications of potential service on his career.

“It doesn’t worry me at all,” Kim said Thursday when asked about Bae. “It’s the way our country works, and good golf takes care of everything. Just because it happened to him doesn’t mean it happens to other people. You can’t say that it affected him at all. There could be different things that could have happened. I’m not really thinking about it. It’s not on my mind at all, I’m just trying to focus on my game.”