Kim Si-woo Aims for Major Breakthrough at U.S. Open

By Yoo Jee-ho

SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- Enjoying the best season of his career on the PGA Tour, Kim Si-woo will tee off at the third major tournament of the season in search of elusive success on the game's biggest stages.

Kim will be one of three South Koreans in the field at the U.S. Open starting Thursday at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, New York.

Kim, a four-time PGA Tour winner, is the top-ranked South Korean player at No. 18, the highest position of his career. He has set a career high with eight top-10 finishes this season in 16 starts, including a pair of runner-up showings.

Kim is No. 4 in the FedEx Cup points standings, the only player inside the top five without a victory in 2026.

The 30-year-old has mostly been a non-factor at majors throughout his career, with just one top-10 finish in 36 appearances. This will be his 10th U.S. Open start, and his best performance to date came in his debut in 2017, when he tied for 13th at Erin Hills. He has missed the cut four times at the U.S. Open.

The two other South Koreans teeing off this week will be Im Sung-jae and Tom Kim.

Im will make his ninth consecutive U.S. Open start. He has missed the cut four times and has not finished higher than 22nd place in his previous appearances.

Im missed the early portion of this season while recovering from a wrist injury and has recorded three top-10 finishes in 12 starts so far.

Kim will play in his fourth U.S. Open in a row. He tied for eighth in 2023 at the Los Angeles Country Club.

The 23-year-old has hit a rough patch over the past couple of years after notching three victories between 2022 and 2023. He has just four top-10 finishes in his last 64 tournaments since the start of 2024.

Shinnecock Hills, the par-70 course at 7,440 yards, last hosted the U.S. Open in 2018, when the winning score by Brooks Koepka was one-over 281.

The course, featuring a par-4 hole at over 500 yards and a par-5 hole that will play longer than 600 yards, will likely have the typically treacherous U.S. Open conditions -- with narrow fairways, brutal rough and slick, unforgiving greens.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will chase his first U.S. Open title, which would make him the seventh player to complete a career Grand Slam. He has won the Masters twice and has one title each at the PGA Championship and the Open Championship. Scheffler will turn 30 on Sunday, the day of the final round.