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

Kyung-Tae Kim known to be really talented and hard to beat since junior days, and people used to call him "tough as a devil". But he seems to be suffering these days, especially with his putting. This tournament has the tickets hanging for the British Open, but even the 2 times Order of Merit champion doesn't have that much of breathing space.

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.