Tom Kim victory at Shriners Children’s Open underscores fierce youth movement

Tiger Woods can be forgiven if he felt a tinge of wistful nostalgia while the final round of the Shriners Children’s Open was being played on Sunday. It was nearly three decades ago that he earned his first PGA TOUR title at that same event.

Woods’ win came just weeks after he won an unprecedented third U.S. Amateur in a row. He defeated a future Hall of Famer, Davis Love III, in a sudden-death playoff in Las Vegas and quieted any skeptics who thought Woods’ success wouldn’t carry over to the pro game.

With that win, in just his fifth tournament as a pro, Woods announced that he was indeed the guy.

Rory McIlroy used to be that guy. Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth – they were that guy, too.

You know that guy: talented, relentless, absurdly young. Overflowing with potential and time squarely on his side. Only the names change.

Today, that guy is Tom Kim, 21, who shot 66 to hold off Adam Hadwin (67) and successfully defend his Shriners title in Las Vegas. Kim is the second-youngest player since World War II to win his third PGA TOUR title. Only Woods was younger.

“I felt like I almost added a lot of pressure towards myself to perform really well this year,” Kim said of what had been an up-and-down 2023. “But, really, it's been a very big learning curve for me, and it's very humbling to be able to experience what I've experienced this year.

“That's why I feel like this third one is even sweeter,” he added.

When you’re his age, going a full trip around the sun without a victory seems like a long time.

Ludvig Åberg, 23, shot a final-round 62 on Sunday to finish T13 at the Shriners, one week after losing a playoff at the Sanderson Farms Championship. He turned pro earlier this year to big expectations and the burden of being the first player to earn PGA TOUR status through PGA TOUR University. He quickly proved himself deserving, having so much success that he was named to the European Ryder Cup team just a few months after he was carrying a Texas Tech stand bag.

Åberg already is on the cusp of cracking the top 50 in the world ranking and has all but ensured his position in the top 125 of the FedExCup despite not starting his season until June. He won the DP World Tour’s Omega European Masters and finished T10 at the BMW PGA Championship before going 2-2 at the Ryder Cup.

Oh, and Åberg also attended the Solheim Cup just for fun in the days before he arrived at Marco Simone. It's hard to say which is more enviable, his swing or his energy. And he and the equally irrepressible Kim have company. From the TOUR to the DP World Tour to amateur golf, the kids are copious and they are crushing it.

This week, Vanderbilt junior Gordon Sargent, 20, will play in the World Amateur Team Championships in Abu Dhabi, thereby becoming the first to cross the 20-point threshold and reach PGA TOUR University Accelerated status (whereby a junior, sophomore or freshman can earn PGA TOUR membership).

The long-hitting phenom, who won an NCAA Championship as a freshman and received a rare special invitation to the Masters, will have a PGA TOUR card awaiting at the conclusion of this college season (he can also defer the status until after his senior season). He wowed some of the game’s biggest names with his prodigious length at Augusta National, then was low amateur at the U.S. Open (T39). For good measure, he became the first player since 1987 to go 4-0 at a road Walker Cup.

Denmark’s Nicolai and Rasmus Højgaard, twin brothers, are 22. Nicolai was the youngest player on either team at this year’s Ryder Cup; Rasmus went in a support role. The brothers, who have six DP World Tour victories between them, will be in action this week, Nicolai at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP (he’s a Special Temporary Member on the PGA TOUR) and Rasmus at the DP World Tour’s Andalucía Masters.

Christo Lamprecht, the 6-foot-8-inch South African who plays for Georgia Tech and has touched 200 mph ball speed, shot 66 in his first-ever major championship round to take the first-round lead at The Open Championship in July. Lamprecht, 22, is currently No. 1 in both the World Amateur Golf Ranking and the PGA TOUR University Ranking. The No. 2 player in PGA TOUR U, Michael Thorbjornsen, already owns a top-5 finish on TOUR.

Nick Dunlap, 19, won the U.S. Amateur in August, becoming the only player other than Woods to have captured both the U.S. Junior and the U.S. Amateur. He recently shot a final-round 63 to nip Sargent in a college tournament and, in his next start, lipped out an 8-foot putt for the first 59 in the history of men’s college golf.

They may soon be chasing Norway’s Viktor Hovland, who won the BMW Championship and FedExCup back-to-back in August and turned 26 last month. Hovland went 3-1-1 at the Ryder Cup, his chip-in birdie on the first hole Friday an instant classic, and alongside Åberg made history with a 9-and-7 thrashing of Brooks Koepka and Scottie Scheffler.

Who saw that one coming?

Given the preponderance of good, young players today, no one is immune from feeling awed, first and foremost, but also whiplashed and, well, erm, older.

“I’m probably on the back nine of my Ryder Cup career,” McIlroy said after winning his Singles match to run his record to 4-1-0 in Rome. Europe had won, 16.5-11.5, and the winners were lined up at the dais, two deep. Shane Lowry looked over his shoulder at McIlroy, who is only 34.

“I’ve made the turn,” McIlroy said with a laugh. “Made the turn.”

It all seemed slightly dramatic, but now we know what he was going on about.

“To see guys like Ludvig come in here,” McIlroy continued, “and be an absolute stud and take everything in stride, I wish I was in his position again, looking forward to playing in 15 or 20 Ryder Cups or whatever it is he’s going to play in.”

That estimate seems high, but no doubt Åberg is going to play in a lot of them. For Kim, who made a career-high 28 birdies for the week at the Shriners, it’s the Presidents Cup, where he was the heartbeat of the International Team last year. He’ll try to lead the squad to a long-awaited victory at Royal Montreal next fall.

Time is on his side, as it is for the others. They’re that guy now.