Si Woo Kim is a 31-year-old South Korean pro golfer with four PGA Tour wins, over $38 million in career PGA Tour earnings, and a career-best T6 at the 2026 Open Championship. He’s married to golfer Ji Hyun Oh, avoided Korean military service through a 2023 Asian Games gold medal, and plays Callaway equipment.
(Also searched as “Sim Woo Kim” or “Sin Woo Kim” the correct spelling is Si Woo Kim, or Kim Si-woo in Korean name order.)
We’ve tracked Si Woo Kim’s leaderboard appearances all season, and 2026 has been strange for him in the best way. He leads the entire PGA Tour in birdies made. He’s tied for the most top-10 finishes of anyone not named Scottie Scheffler. And he still hasn’t won.
That gap between “best form of his career” and “still searching for win No. 5” is the whole story right now. This guide covers everything people actually search for on Si Woo Kim: his net worth, his wife, the military service question every young Korean athlete faces, his clubs, his caddie, and the two genuinely bizarre stories, a cigarette and a Canadian border crossing, that made him golf’s most talked-about personality this summer.
Who Is Si Woo Kim? Quick Facts
- Full name: Kim Si-woo (Si Woo Kim in Western order)
- Born: June 28, 1995, in Seoul, South Korea, he’s 31 as of this update
- Height/Weight: 5-foot-11 (1.80m), 182 pounds
- College: Yonsei University (he turned pro at 17 and never played college golf competitively)
- Current residence: Dallas, Texas
- Turned pro: 2012, at age 17, still the youngest player ever to graduate PGA Tour Q-School
- PGA Tour wins: 4. Career PGA Tour earnings: $38,349,184 as of this season
- World ranking: No. 18 in the latest Official World Golf Ranking
Kim’s path to the Tour was unusual from the start. He qualified for his card through Q-School at 17 but had to wait almost a full year before he turned 18 and PGA Tour rules let him actually compete. He missed seven cuts in his first eight starts once he finally got the chance. Nobody remembers that part of his story anymore.
PGA Tour Wins and Career Timeline
Four wins is a modest number for a player this talented, and that gap between talent and trophy count is what makes his career interesting.
| # | Year | Tournament | Score | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2016 | Wyndham Championship | −21 | 5 strokes |
| 2 | 2017 | THE PLAYERS Championship | −10 | 3 strokes |
| 3 | 2021 | The American Express | −23 | 1 stroke |
| 4 | 2023 | Sony Open in Hawaii | −18 | 1 stroke |
The 2017 Players Championship win is still the headline. Kim beat Ian Poulter and Louis Oosthuizen by three shots at 21 years old, becoming the youngest winner in the tournament’s history, a record that still stands. He came into that week ranked 73rd in the world.
He’s also the guy who’s lost three separate Tour playoffs (2016 Barbasol, 2018 RBC Heritage, 2021 Wyndham), including a heartbreaker at Harbour Town where he shot three-over on the back nine of regulation and watched Satoshi Kodaira make a long birdie putt to beat him on the third extra hole. Fans don’t talk about Kim as a serial contender, but the results say otherwise, he’s been in position to win far more than four times.
Major Championship Record: Great at Everything Except Augusta
This is where Kim’s 2026 season actually matters. For years, his major championship résumé was the biggest hole in an otherwise strong career. That changed at the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
| Major | Best Finish | Year | Starts | Cuts Made |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Open Championship | T6 | 2026 | 8 | 4 |
| PGA Championship | T8 | 2025 | 10 | 3 |
| U.S. Open | T13 | 2017 | 10 | 5 |
| Masters Tournament | T12 | 2021 | 9 | 8 |
Kim reached 10-under and took the outright lead on the back nine at Royal Birkdale, putting him in position to become the first Asian-born golfer to win the Claret Jug. He bogeyed four of his last eight holes and finished tied for sixth, still his best-ever major finish, one better than his previous career-best at the 2025 PGA Championship. He posted an unusually honest reaction on social media that evening, calling it a choke in his own words.
Here’s the part nobody’s written yet: Kim’s four major championships rank from best to worst almost exactly backward from what most fans would guess. He’s better at the brutal, penal setups of the U.S. Open and the Open Championship than he is at Augusta National, where his ball-striking should, in theory, play well. In nine Masters starts, he’s made the cut eight times and never once finished inside the top 10.
If you’re hoping this section talks you into Kim as a Masters sleeper, it won’t. His scoring average at Augusta sits a full stroke worse than his major-championship average everywhere else, and a putter that ranks outside the Tour’s top 100 in Strokes Gained doesn’t magically improve on Augusta’s greens. Everywhere else, back him. At the Masters, fade him.
Net Worth: Career Earnings vs. Estimated Fortune
Most net-worth pages just print one guessed number and move on. Kim’s finances actually split into two very different figures, and mixing them up is where most articles get this wrong.
His official PGA Tour career earnings, tournament winnings only, verified by the Tour itself, sit at $38,349,184 as of this season. That number is public record, and it only goes up.
His estimated net worth is a different animal, because it tries to fold in Callaway equipment money, an apparel deal with Primo (the brand YouTuber Grant Horvat launched, which Kim signed with at the start of 2026), Nike footwear, and whatever he’s invested along the way. Outlets that track athlete finances put that figure somewhere between $16 million and $29 million, lower than his tournament earnings alone, which sounds odd until you remember taxes, agent fees, caddie pay (typically 8–10% of earnings), and travel costs eat a serious chunk of what a Tour pro actually banks.
Wife, Son and Life in Dallas
Kim married Ji Hyun Oh, a professional golfer with multiple Korean LPGA Tour victories of her own, on December 18, 2022. The two reportedly met at a golf event back in 2014 and started dating years later, in 2021. Oh stepped back from competitive golf after the wedding to travel with Kim’s schedule, and the couple welcomed a son, Theo, in February 2024.
Si Woo Kim’s fourth PGA Tour win, the 2023 Sony Open, landed just weeks after the wedding, his first title as a married man. He’s called it a turning point, and it’s hard to argue: he’d gone nearly two years without a win before that week.
So where does Si Woo Kim live? Dallas, Texas, where he’s a member at Royal Oaks Country Club alongside Scottie Scheffler. The two are regular money-game partners in the offseason, Scheffler has publicly admitted Kim’s taken cash off him more than once.
The Military Service Story: How an Asian Games Gold Kept Him Out of the Army
Every South Korean man faces roughly 21 months of mandatory military service before age 35, professional athletes included. For years, this hung over Kim’s career the same way it hangs over every young Korean golfer on Tour.
He got one shot at an exemption in 2021, when he and countryman Sungjae Im skipped the Open Championship to chase an Olympic medal in Tokyo instead. Only a medal counts for the military waiver, and neither player finished in the top three. Two years later, at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, Kim got a second chance. He and Im anchored South Korea’s team event, and the pair, plus two amateur teammates, beat Thailand by 25 strokes to win team gold, South Korea’s first team gold at the event in 13 years. That gold medal came with a full exemption from the 21-month service requirement, a rule that applies to any Asian Games gold or any Olympic medal, regardless of color.
It’s a genuinely big deal in South Korea, and it wasn’t guaranteed. Professionals had never even been eligible to compete in Asian Games golf before 2023, it was the first year the rule changed to let Tour players in. Kim later admitted he was nervous the entire week.
His Caddie: The Manny Villegas Partnership
Kim’s current caddie is Manuel “Manny” Villegas, the younger brother of five-time PGA Tour winner Camilo Villegas. They linked up ahead of the 2022 Presidents Cup, after Kim split from previous caddie Brian Vranesh, who’d been on the bag for the 2021 American Express win.
The Villegas partnership has outlasted every other caddie relationship of Kim’s career. It’s produced his 2023 Sony Open win, two Presidents Cup appearances (2022 and 2024), and the single most memorable shot of Kim’s career: a 238-yard hole-in-one with a 3-iron on the 17th at Royal Troon during the 2024 Open Championship, which Kim has credited directly to Villegas’s club selection. People who’ve watched the pair work up close describe the dynamic almost like a play-caller and a quarterback, Villegas sets up the decision, Kim just executes it.
What’s In Si Woo Kim’s Bag (WITB) for 2026
Si Woo Kim is a full Callaway staffer, and his 2026 setup leans on tour-only prototypes most amateurs will never see on a shelf.
| Club | Model | Loft / Spec | Why It’s In the Bag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Driver | Callaway Quantum Triple Diamond | 9° | Switched to it at the start of 2026 as part of his Callaway staff deal |
| Mini-Driver | Callaway Ai Smoke Ti 340 | 11.5° | Backup off the tee on tighter driving holes |
| Fairway Wood | Cobra Optm LS | 18° | One of the few non-Callaway pieces in the bag |
| Irons | Callaway Apex MB (5–9) + X-Forged Star JDM (4i) | KBS Tour-V 125 shafts | Classic old-school setup, driver, 3-wood, 5-wood, and just two wedges |
| Wedges | Callaway Opus | 48°, 52°, 56°, 60° | Fewer wedges than most Tour bags |
| Putter | Odyssey TRTL (tour-only prototype) | Heavy lead weighting | Same model used by Min Woo Lee |
| Ball | Callaway Chrome Soft X | Triple Track | Kim’s ball for several seasons running |
The putter is the interesting piece here. It’s a current tour-only Odyssey model carrying extra lead weight for stability, which tracks with Kim’s numbers: he’s a top-5 Strokes Gained: Total player this season, but he ranks outside the Tour’s top 100 in Strokes Gained: Putting. A ball-striker this good shouldn’t be leaking that many strokes on the greens, and it’s the clearest explanation for why he leads the Tour in birdies but still hasn’t converted that into a fifth win. For a full breakdown of what those loft numbers actually mean for launch and distance, our club lofts guide covers every club in that table above.
His apparel deal is newer than his equipment deal, he signed with Primo, the golf clothing brand owned by YouTuber Grant Horvat, at the start of 2026, and wears Nike’s Victory Pro 4 shoes, the same model Scottie Scheffler wears.
The LIV Golf Saga: Why He Turned Down Millions
In December 2025, Kim spent about a week as one of the most talked-about names in golf for reasons that had nothing to do with his swing. Reports surfaced that he was in “late-stage negotiations” with LIV Golf’s rebranded Becko East GC (formerly IronHeads GC, previously captained by Kevin Na), reportedly for an eight-figure offer and a captain’s role with equity attached.
Kim shut it down twice. The first denial came through a member of his team, who told a Korean outlet that Kim had rejected the recruitment and would remain on the PGA Tour. When rumors resurfaced days later, Kim posted a photo of himself with the Sony Open trophy, captioning it that he’d see everyone at next year’s tournament, his equipment sponsor Callaway piled on with a well-known “not leaving” meme to make the point unmissable. He confirmed his decision a third time on Instagram that December with a simple text card stating he’d be playing the PGA Tour.
The timing mattered. Kim was coming off one of the most consistent stretches of his career, a T4 at the RSM Classic, a solo third at the Crown Australian Open, and LIV losing that recruiting battle was a real setback for a league that’s been actively courting Korean players.
Two Viral Moments: The Cigarette and the Canadian Border
Two stories explain why casual golf fans know Si Woo Kim’s name even if they’ve never watched him play a full round.
The PGA Championship cigarette. During the first round of the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, cameras caught Kim taking a drag of a cigarette while walking up to a tee box, then stubbing it out before his shot. He was even par through 12 holes at the time. A reporter asked him about it the next day, and Kim’s two-word answer, “old and stressed” turned the clip into one of the week’s biggest social media moments. He did it again almost a year later, at the 2026 Players Championship, killing time during a long pace-of-play backup on the seventh tee at TPC Sawgrass.
The Canadian border mix-up. In July 2026, ahead of the Rocket Classic in Detroit, fellow pro Michael Kim invited Si Woo out for Korean barbecue. Both men searched for the same restaurant name, except two identically named Korean BBQ spots exist, one in Detroit and one just across the river in Windsor, Ontario. Si Woo followed his phone’s directions straight toward the Canadian one, paid a $9 toll, and only realized what happened once he came out the other side of the tunnel. Without a passport in the car, he couldn’t legally turn back at the border and had to cross into Canada, wait in line, and explain the situation to agents on the other side. As many as eight officers got involved before Si Woo talked his way back into the US. One officer reportedly asked if he was going to win that week; Kim’s answer was that he would, if they let him through. Dinner happened about 90 minutes later than planned.
Neither story has anything to do with his golf swing, and that’s exactly why they’ve traveled as far as they have.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is Si Woo Kim?
Si Woo Kim was born on June 28, 1995, which makes him 31 years old as of this update.
Where does Si Woo Kim live?
Kim lives in Dallas, Texas, where he’s a member at Royal Oaks Country Club and regularly plays money games with fellow Dallas-area pro Scottie Scheffler.
What is Si Woo Kim’s net worth?
Estimates from outlets that track athlete finances put Kim’s net worth between $16 million and $29 million. That’s separate from his official PGA Tour career earnings, which are publicly verified at $38,349,184.
Is Si Woo Kim married?
Yes. Kim married professional golfer Ji Hyun Oh on December 18, 2022. They have one son, Theo, born in February 2024.
Did Si Woo Kim complete his military service?
He didn’t have to. Kim earned a full exemption from South Korea’s mandatory 21-month military service after winning team gold with Sungjae Im at the 2023 Asian Games.
How tall is Si Woo Kim?
Kim stands 5-foot-11 (1.80m) and weighs around 182 pounds.
Is Si Woo Kim joining LIV Golf?
No. Kim turned down a reported eight-figure LIV Golf offer in December 2025 and confirmed multiple times that he’s staying on the PGA Tour.
Who is Si Woo Kim’s caddie?
Manuel “Manny” Villegas, brother of Tour pro Camilo Villegas, has caddied for Kim since 2022.
What’s Si Woo Kim’s best finish at the Masters?
A tie for 12th in 2021, still his only top-20 finish at Augusta National in nine career starts.
The Bottom Line
Si Woo Kim’s 2026 season is the best golf he’s ever played, and he still doesn’t have a trophy to show for it, that gap is what makes him worth following right now, not the cigarette clips or the border-patrol story. Ten top-10s, the Tour’s birdie lead, and a career-best major finish all point at a fifth win that hasn’t landed yet. If you’re dialing in your own bag the way Kim has, start with our golf club lofts guide and work backward from there.