How far apart, speaking of golf, are mad joy and cosmic pissing off? According to the current rules this distance is obtained by adding the reasonable time to reach the hole and ten seconds. Testimonial of this status is Seonghyeon Kim, a young professional invited last week for the second time to play on the PGA Tour.
If the first time is never forgotten (playing elbow to elbow with the world’s best pros) the second is destined to go down in personal history for the 22-year-old South Korean.
In Las Vegas, on the last hole of the fourth round of The CJ Cup (won by McIlroy), Kim was enveloped by the never-sought-after cloak of bad luck. One of his putts for birdie from less than a foot became a school case. The ball thoughtfully made a nice 360-degree turn around the edge of the hole and then stopped slightly outside. A matter of millimeters and the force of gravity, a situation that – we know – happens more often than you might think.
With his mind, Seonghyeon Kim must have immediately told off who knows what. With his body he raised the putter, made a half turn around the hole, meditated and then – resigned to par – returned close to the ball to hit it again. Suddenly, however, the ball rolled into the hole on its own. In the general jubilation of the audience present at the PGA Tour event, the South Korean picked up the ball from the 18th and made a birdie on his score. A very prestigious result, a 25th place for 70 thousand dollars if… there hadn’t been a little out of order called a penalty.
