Tom Kim Accepted The Villain Role at the President’s Cup. He Didn’t Live Up to Expectations

Tom Kim was more than willing to be the “bad guy” at the President’s Cup, but the bad guy needed to come through, and he simply did not.

Kim barked at Scottie Scheffler during their Thursday fourball match, only to be immediately reprimanded and silenced by the world’s greatest player.

He was not part of the International’s reverse sweep on Friday.

On Saturday, he complained about a putt to tie the hole:

You giving this one to the @IntlTeam? pic.twitter.com/wmhZA5e9iD

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 28, 2024

He also claimed U.S. team members cursed at him.

Sunday, he finished his match with Sam Burns, who has struggled for a lot of the year, all square. Kim, for what it is worth, is a great player, but he did not assume his role.

After the end of the Cup, Kim went for Furyk and Schauffele to apologize:

“Yeah, it was just about my comments. I just told him like, hey, I didn’t mean it to go in such a negative way. If it did, I just said I’m sorry. It was just I felt like what I heard yesterday, some comments that I’ve heard was at that time, just coming off the green, it came to me so personally and just I felt like it was right to share.”

It’s nice to hear, but truly, when is it going to be okay to be the villain and fully accept the role? If you’re going to be a thorn, an emotional player, an unofficial leader of a chippy team event, you don’t only have to talk, but you have to back it up, too.

Kim simply did not do this.

Patrick Cantlay may be the perfect example because at last year’s Ryder Cup, there was controversy surrounding the hat and a testy attitude toward the opponent, but there was one more thing: the ability to hurt them where it count: on the scoreboard.

Cover Image via Golf Magazine