SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France (AP) — Tom Kim had a run of three straight birdies on the back nine Friday for a 3-under 68 that put him in the mix for an Olympic medal that would be valuable in ways 58 other players at Le Golf National can’t appreciate.
It would make him exempt from mandatory military service in South Korea, a topic that comes up at every Olympics since golf returned to the program in 2016. It’s a topic the 22-year-old Kim is trying to avoid.
He knows what’s at stake this week. He’d rather not talk about it.
“I think the easiest answer for us is we’re here to play good this week,” Kim said when he and Byeong (Ben) Hun An held a pre-tournament news conference. “We are not focused on that. We are here to represent our country. And to be honest, I want me and Ben to be standing on that podium not for exemption but for our country.”
That was on Tuesday. And then he posted rounds of 66-68 and was three shots out of the lead going into the weekend.
“I already said it in my press conference. I’m just trying to focus on my game,” Kim said Friday. “I’m a competitor and we all play for the same thing. It’s just golf. So I’m just trying to put my head down and play.”
Under South Korean law, most able-bodied men must perform 18 to 21 months of military service. Special exemptions are granted for athletes and classical artists who excel in certain kinds of international competitions tied to national prestige.
Sungjae Im and Si Woo Kim also spoke sparingly about it at the Tokyo Games and it never came up again the rest of the week after they were a dozen shots or more out of the lead by the weekend.
Their big break came later. South Koreans are exempt from the military service if they win any medal at the Olympics or a gold medal from the Asian Games. The latter was only for amateurs previously, but when the Asian Games resumed in 2023 after the COVID-19 pandemic, professionals were allowed to play.
Late last year in China, Im and Si Woo Kim played the team event with two South Korean amateurs and won the gold by 25 shots, earning the military exemption.
“At least Tom is young,” the 32-year-old An said. “This won’t be his last Olympics, how good he’s playing the last couple years and will be playing next couple years.”
Seung-yul Noh won on the PGA Tour in 2014. He started his military service in 2018. His tie for sixth two weeks ago in the ISCO Championship in Kentucky was his first top-10 finish on the PGA Tour since his return from service four years ago.
The most recent example is Sangmoon Bae, who played in the 2015 Presidents Cup in South Korea before he began his service. Bae won a Korn Ferry Tour event a year after he got out to earn back his full PGA Tour card. But he hasn’t been the same.
“I’ve kind of lost my feel how to play golf,” Bae said in a 2019 interview. “Not how to swing — I forgot how to play golf.”
Tom Kim won twice on the PGA Tour at age 20 and played in the Presidents Cup in 2022. He is virtually a lock on the International team for the Presidents Cup matches in Montreal in September. At the Olympics, he has been asked about the military service after reach round, including one question that mentioned the plight of Bae.
“It doesn’t worry me at all,” Kim said Thursday when asked about Bae. “It’s the way our country works, and good golf takes care of everything. Just because it happened to him doesn’t mean it happens to other people. You can’t say that it affected him at all. There could be different things that could have happened. I’m not really thinking about it.
“It’s not on my mind at all, I’m just trying to focus on my game.”
