Tournament article
Gate Way To The Open Mizuno Open at The Royal Golf Club 2019
Kyung-Tae Kim struggles putter yips but comes through with 5 under top finish
The venue for this week's tournament, The Royal Golf Club has its longest setting at total 8000 yards. But the length wasn't making Kyung-Tae Kim suffer, the battle on the green was.
Kyung-Tae Kim faced the problem with putting yips during the tournament in his home country at the beginning of May.
"I was afraid to admit, because if I did, I knew it will come true."
But it was deniable that he had it.
"If it happened only during the tournament, I could say it was mental thing. But it was happening on the practice green as well. I tried everything possible, changed my stance, used some tools and anything that might help, but when it's bad, it's bad. I tried but got more confused and I hit the wall."
Then this week during his Pro-Am game, he tried taking his back stroke slower, it worked! On his starting hole 10th, he made 1-meter left to right putt which got him the "touch" back. Then on 16th, he got the 7-meter birdie putt and also 20-meter on the 18th.
"Scoring 5 under per day is awesome, I haven't done it for a while."
He is crossing his fingers that the putt problem will go away with this great start.
"My shots have been good all the time. This great score will give me momentum, so I will like to keep it going for the whole 4 days."
Maybe the "devil" has awakened again.