At two in the morning, TK Kim and his wife Jin still sat together on the couch, replaying the putt over and over again.
The tears had already come and gone five or six times — maybe more. Neither could remember anymore. Every time they thought they had finally settled down, one of them would bring up another detail from the final hole of U.S. Open qualifying, and the emotions would come rushing back again.
“We didn’t want to go to sleep,” Jin told me days later, her voice cracking again while recalling it. “We were afraid we would wake up and it wouldn’t be real.”
Just hours earlier, Kim had poured in a long putt on the final hole to earn a spot at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club for the U.S. Open.
For most fans, it was simply another player surviving golf’s longest day.
For Kim, it felt like the opportunity of a lifetime.
The 35-year-old has endured just about everything professional golf can throw at someone: injuries — so many injuries — sponsorship deals that ended badly, financial uncertainty, and near misses that piled up enough to make walking away understandable.
The tears weren’t just about qualifying for the U.S. Open. They were about everything it had taken to survive long enough to get there.
TK Kim was born in Seoul. His father, Tae-Ho Kyoung, owned a driving range and had once played professionally himself. Like so many kids, TK first picked up the game simply because he wanted to spend time with his dad.
He quickly became good at it.
But golf wasn’t the only sport pulling at him. Kim was also a nationally known skier, talented enough that by age 11 he was being recruited to join the Korean national ski team with hopes of eventually competing in the 2018 Olympics.
Then came the conversation that changed everything.
His parents sat him down and told him he needed to choose: golf or skiing.
The decision wasn’t simply about which sport he loved more. Both paths came with sacrifice.
Since he was three or four years old, Kim had spent months at a time in Hawaii with his aunt, whom he considered a second mother. The arrangement had always worked because it was temporary.
Choosing golf meant it would no longer be temporary.
If he wanted to seriously pursue the game, it meant leaving his parents behind in South Korea and moving full-time to Hawaii to live with his aunt. His parents believed it gave him the best chance at a future in golf, even if it came at the cost of being apart.
At 11 years old, TK made the choice.
He chose golf.
Soon his bags were packed and he was headed to his aunt’s house in Hawaii. TK would never again live in Korea full-time.
At 14, his aunt officially adopted him.
She owned a successful Japanese restaurant in Maui, and when Kim talked about her, it was obvious their bond ran far deeper than obligation. She had become another mother to him.
But there was one problem: restaurant owners don’t get weekends off to travel the junior golf circuit.
As Kim began consistently winning tournaments in Hawaii, opportunities to play bigger junior events on the mainland started appearing. Those events also exposed a reality most elite junior golfers never have to think about.
TK had no adult available to travel with him. So beginning around age 14, Kim essentially traveled alone.
“I always tagged along with somebody,” Kim told me. “A rules official, another player, somebody.”
An adult would check him into the hotel, hand him a room key, and that was mostly it. Kim would find rides to and from the course himself and spend the weeks navigating tournaments largely on his own.
In 2008, Kim qualified for both the U.S. Pub Links and the World Juniors, two of the biggest events an amateur golfer could play.
The problem was they were scheduled almost at the same time.
Kim chose to focus on the U.S. Publinks.
“I was playing against college kids and adults, so I figured that was the best one to play in,” he told me.
But there was a complication. Kim never officially withdrew from the World Juniors, and when he didn’t appear, he was listed simply as a “No Show.” It became an unintended black mark during recruiting.
Many college coaches saw the listing and assumed Kim was immature or undisciplined — a talented junior who simply failed to show up for one of the biggest events in the world — when in reality he was just a teenager trying to navigate elite amateur golf largely on his own.
It made signing day for college a little stressful.
Standing on the range at his home club in Hawaii just one day before signing day, Kim still didn’t have a school.
Then his phone rang.
On the other end was Kevin Burton.
Burton had seen Kim play at the 2008 Publinks Championship alongside Rickie Fowler and one of Boise State’s players. He liked what he saw and offered Kim a scholarship.
Kim accepted almost immediately.
He had never visited the campus. He knew little about the golf program. None of that mattered. He finally had somewhere to go.
That same day, he signed his letter of intent with Boise State University.
A few months later, as his flight from Hawaii began descending into Boise, Kim stared out the window at miles and miles of farmland below.
“What have I done?” he remembered thinking.
Kim’s plan entering his freshman year was simple: play well, then get the hell out of Boise and transfer to a powerhouse golf program.
Instead, he fell in love with the place.
He connected immediately with coach Kevin Burton, embraced the underdog mentality of the program, and built close relationships with former Boise State University players Graham DeLaet and Troy Merritt, both of whom later reached the PGA Tour.
What initially felt like a temporary stop slowly started to feel like home. He never left. Kim’s career at Boise State University was solid, if not spectacular.
He played in every event during both his junior and senior seasons, recorded a win, and piled up multiple top-25 finishes. He wasn’t a can’t-miss star, but he was steady, dependable, and good enough to believe the next level was possible.
Then, after his senior season, the moment Kim had been chasing since he was 14 years old finally arrived.
TK Kim turned pro.
With the support of a Boise State University booster, Kim headed to China to begin his professional career on PGA Tour China. Except, at first, that wasn’t really the plan.
Kim was back in Korea visiting his parents when he heard about PGA Tour China Q-School. He scrambled to make it happen, calling a friend in Boise and asking him to gather his clubs and ship them overseas.
It worked.
Kim finished 14th at Q-School and suddenly had somewhere to play.
The rookie season went better than almost anyone could have expected. Kim made nine cuts in 11 starts, recorded two top-10 finishes, and earned nearly $170,000.
Things finally seemed to be going according to plan.
The next two seasons in China brought more solid golf, including a runner-up finish, and growing belief that he was steadily moving toward the PGA Tour.
Then came 2017.
A wrist injury early in the season derailed his career for parts of the next three years and sent Kim into the darkest stretch of his life.
After the first wrist injury, doctors struggled to pinpoint exactly what was wrong. One suggested rest and hoped the pain would calm down on its own.
Kim took four months off. He returned and made it just 24 holes before the pain came roaring back. Another seven months away followed. Another doctor. Another failed diagnosis.
Each comeback seemed shorter than the last.
When Kim returned again, he managed to barely survive first stage of Japan Tour Q-School, despite driving the ball only around 240 yards because of the excruciating pain in his wrist.
But at second stage, the injury finally caught up to him.
After missing out there, Kim flew back to Korea desperate for answers and determined to finally discover what was causing the pain that had slowly taken over both his career and his life.
The family visited five different doctors searching for answers. At one point, Kim said his father became convinced his son was simply being soft. Then the final doctor found it.
Kim had injured his hamate bone and also suffered damage to the cartilage in his triangular fibrocartilage complex, better known as the TFCC.
After years of pain, uncertainty, and failed recoveries, finally having a diagnosis brought relief. But the news that followed was discouraging. The recommended path was more rest. Surgery was viewed only as a last resort.
TK said dinner with his parents that night was “pretty quiet.” By then, golf had already demanded almost everything from him.
He had moved away from home at 11 years old, traveled to tournaments on the mainland alone as a teenager, signed with a college he had never visited, and spent years chasing professional golf across the world.
Now, sitting there after finally receiving a diagnosis but no real solution, Kim felt the dream slipping away.
“I think it’s over,” he told his parents. He returned to Boise and, for the next seven months, rarely left his apartment. Without golf, Kim felt completely lost.
He withdrew from friends, avoided almost any social interaction, and started drinking heavily. Four or five nights a week, he said, he would finish an entire bottle of liquor alone.
The game that had shaped nearly every part of his life since childhood was suddenly gone, and Kim didn’t know who he was without it. Finally, in 2020, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, TK Kim decided it was time to leave pro golf behind and return to Korea.
He wasn’t even sure what waited for him there. Maybe he would teach at one of the massive three-story driving ranges. Maybe he would figure something else out. At that point, anything felt better than another night drinking alone in his apartment in Boise.
With his bags packed, Kim headed to the airport believing he was on his way to the start of a new life.
Instead, he discovered he truly couldn’t go home.
Because Kim had become an American citizen just four days after his 18th birthday, he was no longer considered a Korean citizen. And under COVID restrictions at the time, that meant he wasn’t allowed into the country.
The plan was over before the flight ever left the ground. At the time, it felt devastating. It would end up being the best thing that ever happened to him.
Kim applied for a visa that would allow him to return to Korea, a process he was told should take no more than a month. In the meantime, he moved in with a friend and his wife, sleeping in their spare bedroom while he waited.
For the first time in years, his wrist was finally pain free.
Kim started playing money games with Graham DeLaet and Troy Merritt and quickly realized something surprising: he could still really play. The dream he thought was over slowly started creeping back.
DeLaet and Kim remain close friends and TK has leaned on him as a sort of mentor, though DeLaet discounts that, telling me “TK gives me far too much credit for his successes.”
Then the visa process dragged from weeks into months. And one afternoon at a driving range in Boise, Kim’s life changed forever.
“There aren’t too many Koreans in Boise, Idaho,” Kim told me while laughing about meeting his future wife, Jin. “She was beautiful, and by our third date I knew she was the one.”
Eventually, Kim stopped waiting for Korea and decided to chase professional golf again. In his first event with Jin traveling alongside him, Kim lost in a playoff at the Reno Open.
It would become the start of an almost unbelievable run of near misses.
Kim used the money from Reno to enter a Korn Ferry Tour Monday Qualifier. He lost in a playoff. He went to another Monday qualifier. Lost in a playoff again. Then another. Same result.
At the Utah Open, Kim finished runner-up after the winner made an albatross on the 71st hole.
At the end of 2021, Kim returned to Q-School and successfully made it through both first and second stage, a massive breakthrough considering it guaranteed him at least conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour for the first time in his career.
For a player who had spent years injured, broke, and wondering if he would ever play meaningful professional golf again, it felt like proof he was finally moving forward.
But the momentum didn’t last.
Kim struggled at final stage, finishing 135th and leaving himself with only limited status and another season built mostly around chasing Monday qualifiers.
In 2022, he managed to get into just two Korn Ferry Tour events. He missed the cut in both.
A promised financial backing from a family member eventually led Kim to move to Dallas, hoping it would finally provide some stability for his career.
Instead, the arrangement fell apart after disagreements over how the money was supposed to be used. It was another blow in a career that already had plenty of them.
Fortunately, members at Dallas Athletic Club took Kim in, giving him a place to practice and helping him stay afloat as he tried to keep his professional career alive.
Jin moved to Dallas with him, and the couple married in 2024. She also refused to let his dream die.
An accountant by trade, Jen worked relentlessly to grow her business, eventually taking on PGA Tour players as clients, all so TK could continue chasing professional golf.
The couple lived in a small townhouse outside Dallas before Jen made another sacrifice.
She emptied her retirement savings so they could buy a home with a garage large enough for TK to build a practice setup with a net.
“We are in this financial position because of me,” TK told me through tears, struggling to fully explain what his wife’s belief had meant to him through the years.
And finally, last Monday at his home club, all of the sacrifice led to one putt.
Kim opened with a 67 on the Gold Course at Dallas Athletic Club, putting himself in strong position to claim one of the nine available spots at the 36-hole qualifier for the U.S. Open.
Jin was there, as always, walking every hole beside him.
The second round nearly unraveled early on the back nine when Kim made two bogeys over his first three holes, slipping outside the qualifying number.
But he fought back.
An easy birdie at the par-5 13th steadied him. Then at the par-3 14th, Kim stuffed a 9-iron to 12 feet and poured in the putt for another birdie.At the 15th, he nearly holed his approach shot. Three straight birdies.
Just like that, Kim had climbed comfortably back inside the number.
But very little in TK Kim’s professional career had ever come easy. This wasn’t about to either.
The difficult par-3 16th on the Blue Course is surrounded by water.
Make par there, and TK Kim was headed to Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and the U.S. Open. Instead, his tee shot splashed into the water. Kim immediately dropped to his knees and grabbed his head.
Not again, he thought.
With his heart racing, Kim somehow gathered himself and poured in a 15-foot sliding putt to save bogey and keep his hopes alive. Barely still inside the number.
A good drive and solid approach at 17 appeared to steady things again. But when his first putt came up woefully short, it became impossible not to think about all the near misses that had followed him through his career. The par putt never touched the hole.
Another devastating bogey.
The number of Dallas Athletic Club members following the group had grown with every hole, and by the time Kim reached the par-4 18th, nearly 75 people lined the fairway and green, all pulling for one final miracle.
A par would force a six-for-one playoff. A birdie would send him straight to Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. And bogey… nobody wanted to even think about bogey.
Kim hit a good drive but only a mediocre approach, leaving himself nearly 40 feet for birdie with what he estimated was close to six feet of break.
An impossible putt.
The only video of it is grainy footage shot from far away inside a golf cart. You can’t actually see the ball disappear into the hole. But you hear the screams immediately. You see Kim violently pump his fist.
And you instantly understand what just happened. After the putt dropped, Kim walked straight toward Jin. The tears came immediately.
For years, the two of them had carried the weight of this dream together — the injuries, the uncertainty, the financial strain, the near misses that seemed almost cruel at times.
Now, standing beside the 18th green, neither could find words.
They didn’t need to.
TK called his parents back home in Korea. He said his dad doesn’t show much emotion, but his mom told him that his Dad had a drink that night, something doctors told him not to, in celebratation. It was validation to TK that his Dad understood the moment.
He called DeLaet too, Graham will be at Shinnecock and said “I can’t wait to cheer him on.”
At two in the morning, TK and Jin still sat together on the couch .The tears had come five or six different times by then. Maybe more.
Neither wanted to go to bed.
Because after all the heartbreak, sacrifice, near misses, and years spent wondering whether chasing this dream was destroying their future, they were terrified to wake up and find out it had all just been a dream.
It wasn’t a dream, TK Kim is going to play in the U.S. Open.
