Si Woo Kim started the final day of the Sony Open three shots behind overnight leader Hayden Buckley and made the turn in 32 before taking the lead.
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Buckley holed a 15-foot birdie putt at the 16th to move back to the top of the leaderboard. Kim, who was ahead at the 17th, heard the cheer from the crowd before chipping in from 30 feet to tie him.
“Right before that, I heard the noise,” said the South Korean. “It was kind of a tough lie. I had to hit it aggressive — nothing to lose. I hit it aggressive, it goes in. It was exciting.”
Kim birdied the final hole while Buckley missed his birdie putt at the 18th.
At the age of 27 this is Kim’s fourth PGA Tour tile in his 220th start. He matched his second-lowest final-round score (his lowest was 63 at the 2016 Barbasol Championship) and his second-lowest 72-hole score (his lowest was 259 at the 2016 Wyndham Championship).
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American Buckley’s runner-up finish is his best on Tour, he previously came T4 at the 2021 Sanderson Farms Championship.
“I feel like it definitely played tough out there, so I feel like my ball-striking was right where I wanted it. A little shaky earlier. I didn’t hit it exactly where I wanted to early on, but again, the front nine is so difficult that I knew if I could just grind out a few pars and find my way to the back nine, I’d have a great chance.
“I feel like the putting was a little shaky. It didn’t feel great all week, even though I did make a lot of putts. I made over 200 feet of putts at least in a couple days.
“With that, I feel like I made a lot of those long putts, but I struggled on the short ones. That was dating back to Thursday. Thursday I missed a three- or four-footer for birdie, and it feels like I missed one or two of those almost every day.
“That really just caught up to me at the end. I feel like I had control of the tournament pretty much the whole way, but just a late miss I think on 15 from three or four feet really hurt, but I bounced back with a birdie and gave myself a chance.
“Overall I was impressed by what I did, and I think I’ll remember this day and it’ll just make me better.”
Two-time former champion Chris Kirk finished third at 15-under after closing with a 68 followed by fellow Americans Andrew Putnam (68) and David Lipsky (69) and Englishman Ben Taylor (69) tied in fourth place at 14-under.
