Tom Kim has the worst performance of his career at the 2023 Sony Open  02:07, 13/01/2023

Round 1 of Sony Open 2023 ended with 5 golfers sharing the top spot: David Lipsky (USA), Rory Sabbatini (South Africa), Chris Kirk (USA), Taylor Montgomery (USA) and Jordan Spieth (USA).

Among the most regrettable performances is Asian star Tom Kim. He was not in good form when he caught 3 bogeys on holes 6, 8 and 11, a double bogey on hole 13, while only scoring 3 birdies. Kim finished the round with a score of 72 strokes +2 and dropped to 115th in the leaderboard out of 144 golfers participating.

Rick Gehman called it the worst performance of the 20-year-old's PGA Tour career. He needs to stabilize his form if he wants to jump higher in the rankings and have a chance to touch the championship.

Kim, the reigning Shriners Children's Open champion, is one of the "rising stars" in golf and is one of the favorites and highest ranked athletes in the 2023 Sony Open, along with Jordan Spieth and defending champion Hideki Matsuyama.

The Korean golfer finished in 5th place last week at the Sentry TOC.

According to the 2022/2023 pre-season reporting data so far, Kim ranks in the top 10 in terms of strokes from tee to green and green approach area, but only 46th in putting. This shows some flaws in his golfing.

Also, no rookie has won at the Sony Open since Russell Henley in 2013. So first-timers like Kim may need more real-world experience on the Waialae to find his weak points.