Is it possible to be disappointed with a 60? Si Woo Kim might be after firing an 11-under 60 Friday at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.
Kim, who lives in Dallas, made six birdies on his front nine and six more on his back nine in what was a low-scoring second round at TPC Craig Ranch. It was good enough for a five-shot lead at 18 under. Defending champion Scottie Scheffler (63), Wyndham Clark (63), Sungjae Im (61), Kensei Hirata (65) and Jackson Suber (61) are tied at 13 under.
Jordan Spieth (62) is in a group six back. Brooks Koepka followed his opening 63 with a 69 and fell into a tie for 16th at 10 under.
The scoring average for the field Friday was 68.16, and Kim’s strokes gained: total was still an incredible 13.10.
Kim had a chance at tying Jim Furyk’s 18-hole Tour aggregate scoring record entering the par-4 finisher. Furyk posted a 58 at the Travelers Championship outside of Hartford 10 years ago.
Instead, Kim bogeyed the final hole which means there remains just 14 different players (Furyk has a 58 and a 59) in PGA Tour history to record a sub-60 round.
“Everything was perfect, other than the last hole. I’ll still take it,” he said. “Sixty is hard, but I was a little bit of thinking about the 59 after I make that on 17. It was a little bit of like adrenalin.”
The 30-year-old South Korean put himself in position to break 60 with a curling 17-foot birdie putt from the fringe on the par-3 17th hole at TPC Craig Ranch. It was his 12th birdie of the day, putting him at 12 under on the par-71 layout.
Kim was in the fairway on the 18th, but blasted his second shot over the green. His chip coming back stopped about 19 feet short of the hole, and his putt for par lacked pace and broke to the right for his only bogey of the day.
“I definitely wasn’t going to tell him anything about his round today as we were out there,” said Scheffler, who was playing with Kim and Koepka on Friday afternoon. “I would say it would definitely be in poor taste to remind somebody they’re on 59 watch.”
“I’d equate it to a no-hitter,” he added. “Not going to go in the dugout, like, ‘Hey, man ...’”
The 18th at TPC Craig Ranch is a par 4 for the first time in the six Nelson tournaments it has hosted. A $25 million overhaul designed by Lanny Wadkins turned it into a par 4, and it has played as the hardest hole on the course through two rounds.
“It went farther than I thought,” Kim said of his six-iron shot on No. 18.
