Michael Kim secures 18-hole lead at Memorial Health Championship presented by LRS

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois – Opening the tournament with a bogey-free 10-under 61 Thursday, Michael Kim set a new career low round and took the outright 18-hole lead at the Memorial Health Championship presented by LRS. Kim, who was one stroke shy of tying Panther Creek Country Club’s course record of 60 set by PGA TOUR rookie Taylor Moore last season, now holds a two-shot lead over three players at 8-under – Shad Tuten, Zac Blair and Quade Cummins.

Kim started the first round on the front nine and opened with a trio of pars before rolling in four birdies in a five-hole stretch at Nos. 4, 6, 7 and 8. After making the turn at 4-under, Kim continued to climb the leaderboard, posting birdies on six of his final seven holes (Nos. 12-14 and 16-18).

Thursday’s 10-under 61 marked a new career-low round for Kim in a PGA TOUR-sanctioned event, topping his previous best of 62, which he carded in the second round of last month’s Wichita Open Benefitting KU Wichita Pediatrics. This week marks Kim’s 224th career start in a PGA TOUR-sanctioned tournament.

“Everything was working for me today,” said Kim. “Drove it really well. I got some putts to go in. Got a long one on 17 to go in, which was really nice. I just felt really comfortable the entire day and it was nice to shoot a low one today.”

This is the second event of the season where Kim sits alone atop the leaderboard after the first round, as he also held the 18-hole lead at the NV5 Invitational presented by Old National Bank in May. In that event, he opened with an 8-under 63, but played the final three rounds at just 3-under, eventually finishing T23.

Kim, who turned professional in 2013 and played primarily on the PGA TOUR the last six seasons, is making his 19th start on the Korn Ferry Tour this season and the 60th of his career. In 18 events this year, Kim has seven top-25s, six of which coming in his last seven starts.

The 28-year-old also has five starts on the PGA TOUR this season. In last week’s Barbasol Championship, four consecutive rounds of 2-under par or better helped Kim finish solo seventh, marking his first top-10 finish of the season on either Tour. A final score of 18-under 270 on the week marked his best 72-hole score since 2018.

This week’s Memorial Health Championship presented by LRS is the 20th of 23 regular season events on the Korn Ferry Tour this year. Kim entered the week ranked No. 43 on the Points List and while winning each week is the goal for every golfer, Kim has his eyes set on finishing in the top 25 on the list to secure a PGA TOUR card at the end of the regular season.

“The top-25 is definitely the goal,” said Kim. “A win is definitely going to take care of that. Hopefully I can get it done and if not this week, then I still have three more tournaments and then the playoffs. Just take it one day at a time.”

Prior to this year, Kim spent two seasons on the Korn Ferry Tour (2014 and 2015), making 41 starts over the two-year span. A native of South Korea but representative of the United States, Kim earned his first PGA TOUR card following the 2015 season which featured five top-10s, including a pair of T3s, and No. 13 finish on the regular season money list.

Since the start of his rookie season on TOUR (2015-16), Kim has made 160 starts with 16 top-25s and three top-10s, including his only career victory at the 2018 John Deere Classic. In that event, Kim turned in rounds of 63-64-64-66 to finish at 27-under 257, the 10th score of 257 or better in TOUR history at the time. His eight-stroke margin of victory was the largest in the history of the event and tied Dustin Johnson and Francesco Molinari for the largest winning margin by any player during the 2017-18 season.

Kim played collegiately at the University of California-Berkely, where he won the 2013 Jack Nicklaus Award and Fred Haskins Award, both awarded to the top collegiate player of the year, as a sophomore. In that same season, Kim was also named an All-America First-Team selection and the Pac-12 Conference Player of the Year. The season ended with Kim representing the United States in the 2013 Walker Cup.

Second-round tee times will run from 6:45 a.m. through 1:55 p.m. local time off the first and 10th tees.