Birthday boy Tom Kim maintains Travelers lead
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Tom Kim tees off at the first hole during the second round of the Travelers Championship.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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LOS ANGELES – Tom Kim of South Korea celebrated his 22nd birthday on June 21 in style by securing the halfway lead at the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut.
He built upon his first-round 62 with a five-under 65 to get to 13-under 127 after two rounds at TPC River Highlands.
It was the lowest 36-hole score of his young career, and he was two shots clear of Collin Morikawa (63), Akshay Bhatia (65) and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (64), who turned 28 on the same day.
PGA Championship winner and reigning Olympic champion Xander Schauffele (65) was fifth at 130.
Kim, still bogey-free, said that he had confidence in his game as he seeks his fourth PGA win.
“I’m playing really well and I know kind of what I’m doing on the golf course. So just really executing my game plan, that’s just kind of how I’m doing it, and the score is the score,” the South Korean said.
“I’ve been playing really solid. It’s not just about this week, because it’s about how I keep building these momentum blocks for the rest of the season.”
The first-round leader made five birdies in his first 10 holes, including three straight from the eighth, highlighted by two 14-footers, before finishing with eight pars in a row.
However, he did not grow his lead larger than the two strokes he began the day with, as Morikawa had seven birdies and no bogeys.
The 27-year-old American birdied six holes on the front nine for a 29, tying his career-best nine-hole score on tour.
“This is a course that guys aren’t going to take their foot off the gas and you got to stay on that,” Morikawa said. “Every hole out here is essentially a birdie hole if you hit the fairway, so just got to continue that.”
Scheffler had his afternoon dampened by a 3hr 14min weather delay after lightning struck near the area. He was one of 14 golfers who had to wait out the delay before completing their rounds.
He had three straight birdies from No. 13 and joined the group at 11 under with a birdie on No. 18.
“Definitely better than last week,” Scheffler said, comparing his performance to his tie for 41st place at the US Open.
“I felt, like I said on Thursday, I found a little stuff in my swing and feel like I’m seeing the breaks a lot better on these greens. Definitely feeling some good momentum from the last two days.”
Bhatia, who is just five months older than Kim, is in contention again after winning the Barracuda Championship in July 2023 and the Texas Open in April.
He was briefly 12 under for the tournament before a closing bogey. REUTERS, AFP
