After leaving Chicago Sunday night and arriving in Japan late Monday, Tom Kim proved to be exceptionally durable — or at least not prone to jet lag — during his first round at Kasugai Country Club East Course.
The 24-year-old International team star of the Presidents Cup at Medinah shot a 3-under 67 to open the Asian Games, where he’s playing for an exemption from South Korean military service.
Kim, the 2026 Scottish Open winner who went 4-1-0 last weekend representing the shield, is T-7 after the first 18 holes outside of Nagoya. He sits two shots off Chinese Taipei’s Wei-hsuan Wang and Japan’s Kazuki Higa’s co-lead at 5 under.
On the team side, comprised of the two individual lowest scores, South Korea and China are T-2 at 7 under. Higa has helped power Japan’s team to a two-stroke advantage heading into the second round.
Under South Korean law, a gold medal in either the men’s competition or the team competition would excuse Kim from his mandatory military obligation. Once turning 19, all able-bodied males in the country must serve between 18 and 21 months in the military unless they have a significant cultural justification — an exemption — that let’s them bypass standard active-duty for a few weeks of basic military training and community service.
Kim recorded one of the two solo wins in Sunday singles at the Presidents Cup for the International side, where he beat two-time U.S. Open winner Wyndham Clark, 3 and 2. Fellow South Korean Sungjae Im was the other winner for the shield in singles, with Canadian Nick Taylor splitting his match on Sunday at Medinah to total the International side’s low 2 1/2 point output.
Im and Presidents Cup teammate and fellow countryman Si Woo Kim claimed the exemption in 2023 when they won the 2023 Asian Games by 25 strokes.
