He barely cracked a shy smile as he hoisted the trophy, but that’s just the way Korean golfers (from the South, of course) are: all emotional self-control. Si Woo Kim, 21, has made history at The Players by becoming the youngest winner to win the tournament, which is considered the fifth major. The youngster had already made the news four years earlier, when at just 17 he earned a card to play on the world’s top tour, the PGA Tour. Woo Kim, with a total of 278 strokes (10 under par), was three ahead of runners-up Ian Poulter and Louis Oosthuizen.
The two Spanish representatives who remained in play after the fall in disgrace and in the second cut of the tournament Jon Rahm, who signed on Saturday the worst card of his career, 82 strokes, had unequal luck. The goddess Fortune backed Rafael Cabrera-Bello and turned her back on Sergio Garcia. The player from the Canary Islands scored on the 16th the first albatross on that par 5 in the history of the tournament and then birdied the iconic 17th to finish fourth in the final ranking. That great finish puts him back in the top 25 of the world ranking. Sergio, who had started four strokes off the lead, stumbled with a double bogey on the 4th and then came more mistakes that would make him finish the round with 78 strokes and fall to the final 30th position.
The young winner of the tournament pocketed $1.8 million for his undisputed victory, which he sealed with a final round of 69.
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