Tom Kim: Age, Wife, Military Service and the 2026 Comeback, Explained

Quick Answer: Tom Kim (born Kim Joo-hyung, June 21, 2002) is a 24-year-old South Korean golfer with four PGA Tour wins. He married Lee Seo-yeon in late 2025, missed the 2026 Masters during a form slump, then snapped a three-year winless streak by winning the 2026 Genesis Scottish Open.

Eighteen months ago, Tom Kim’s name showed up in golf headlines for a smashed locker room door and a shouting match at the Presidents Cup. He’d fallen to 141st in the world. He’d missed the Masters for the first time since he was a teenager.

Then, in July 2026, he closed the Genesis Scottish Open with a bogey-free 64 and cried on the 18th green.

A lot changed for Tom Kim in the past year — his coach, his putter, his marital status, his world ranking. Most pages about him haven’t caught up. We pulled together every current number on his age, his wife, his military-service timeline and exactly what happened to derail, and then rescue, his career.

Tom Kim at a Glance

Table last verified August 2026 — we’ll update it as his ranking and results change.

How Old Is Tom Kim? His Age, Birthday and Background

Tom Kim turned 24 on June 21, 2026. He was born Kim Joo-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, the son of Kim Chang-ik, a club pro who once played on the old Buy.com Tour before moving into teaching.

His father’s job moved the family constantly. Kim grew up between Australia, the Philippines and Thailand, and picked up English and Tagalog on top of his native Korean along the way. That’s not a résumé filler line — it’s why he’s comfortable doing pro-am small talk in three languages and why he calls Dallas, not Seoul, his home base today.

He never played college golf. Kim turned professional in 2018 at 15 years old, years before most of his peers were choosing a university team. By 17, he’d already won the Panasonic Open India on the Asian Tour, one of the youngest players ever to do it at that point.

Skipping college is unusual even by pro golf standards, and it’s worth saying plainly: that path only works if you’re genuinely ready, and most 15-year-olds aren’t. Kim was the exception, not the rule.

What Happened to Tom Kim? Inside the Three-Year Slump

What happened with Tom Kim? After winning three times before turning 21, Kim went almost three years without a PGA Tour win. Putting issues, an illness, and a form collapse dropped him from an OWGR career high of 11th to outside the top 140 by early 2026, costing him a Masters invite.

His off-course reputation took hits too. He damaged a locker room door after a playoff loss at the 2024 Genesis Championship in South Korea, and he drew criticism for pace-of-play and gamesmanship flare-ups during the 2024 Presidents Cup. He apologized publicly both times.

None of that is the full story, though. By May 2026, sitting 141st in the world and playing his way into a U.S. Open spot through local qualifying in his adopted hometown of Dallas, Kim looked like a cautionary tale about teenage stardom. He said as much himself — golf, at that level, doesn’t forgive a three-year gap easily.

The Turnaround: New Coach, New Putter and a Wedding Ring

Here’s the part the stat pages miss entirely: three things changed for Kim within about five months of each other, and all three mattered.

In February 2026, he started working with Sean Foley, the coach who once guided Tiger Woods through three major wins. Foley had used Kim’s swing as a teaching example for years before they ever worked together.

Then came the U.S. Open in June. Kim qualified through a 36-hole local qualifier and turned it into a tie for third at Shinnecock Hills — his best major finish since 2023.

Five weeks later, he won the Genesis Scottish Open outright: a bogey-free final-round 64, 17-under total, two shots clear of Min Woo Lee. It was his fourth PGA Tour title and his first since the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open. Sharp-eyed equipment watchers noticed something else that week — Kim had swapped putters just before the win, trading a Scotty Cameron TTG88 prototype for a Scotty Cameron Timeless GSS Tour prototype.

We’d bet that putter change matters more to his week-to-week scoring than any swing tweak Foley made. Putting problems were the specific thing that sank his 2024 and 2025 seasons, and a fresh flat stick right before a win isn’t a coincidence worth ignoring.

Off the course, Kim was working through something bigger. He married Lee Seo-yeon privately in late 2025, and he’s credited the stability directly: “I feel more at ease and more responsible after getting married,” he said. Whatever the exact mechanism, a player who’d missed two majors in April tied for third in a major and won on Tour by July.

Is Tom Kim Married? Meet His Wife, Lee Seo-yeon

Is Tom Kim married? Yes. Tom Kim married Lee Seo-yeon in late 2025, in a private ceremony that stayed out of the golf press until Korea JoongAng Daily broke the story in mid-2026.

The two met in Dallas in 2024, where Seo-yeon and her family were spending a sabbatical year and Kim already had his home base. They connected through regular Bible study meetings, not through golf at all.

Seo-yeon grew up almost as nomadically as Kim did. Her missionary parents raised her across Mongolia and Indonesia before she went on to a double major at Smith College in the United States. “I was attracted to her because her life experiences are similar to mine,” Kim told Korea JoongAng Daily. He’s also said the two of them lean on each other precisely because their childhoods looked so similar.

The couple has kept a low public profile since. Seo-yeon was still a student when they married, and by all accounts that privacy was deliberate — a notable choice for a player who built his early fame on being one of the Tour’s most visible personalities.

Does Tom Kim Have to Serve in the Military?

Does Tom Kim have to go to the military? Not yet, but the clock is running. South Korean law requires able-bodied men to complete 18 to 21 months of military service between ages 18 and 35, and Kim, as a South Korean citizen, isn’t exempt just because he plays on the PGA Tour.

There are only two ways out: winning any medal at the Olympics, or winning gold at the Asian Games. Kim came agonizingly close in 2024, finishing fourth at the Paris Olympics — one spot and a handful of shots short of a medal that would have cleared his path.

His remaining windows are narrowing. The next chance is a gold medal with the South Korean team at the Asian Games in Japan later in 2026; after that, his realistic last shot is a medal at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Fellow Koreans Sungjae Im and Si Woo Kim already earned their exemptions this way, winning team gold at the 2023 Asian Games, so the path has worked before, even without a guarantee this time.

If neither comes through, expect an 18-to-21-month gap in Kim’s prime playing years before he ages out of his deferral. That’s the honest, uncomfortable footnote to every good season he puts together from here.

Are Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim Still Friends?

Are Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim still friends? Yes — by most accounts, they’re close. Scheffler beat Kim in a playoff at the 2024 Travelers Championship, but reports from Kim’s 2026 Scottish Open week describe the two as close, frequent practice partners, including a joint double date during that same week.

The relationship has always looked more like sparring partners than rivals with an edge — Scheffler the dominant world No. 1, Kim the International Team’s emotional center. On-course jabs included.

Tom Kim’s PGA Tour Wins and Career Highlights

Tom Kim has four PGA Tour wins and 13 professional wins worldwide as of August 2026:

1. 2022 Wyndham Championship — his first Tour win, at 20 years and 2 months old, only the second player since World War II to win before turning 20 (after Jordan Spieth).
2. 2022 Shriners Children’s Open — his second win, part of what made him the youngest three-time Tour winner since Tiger Woods in 1997.
3. 2023 Shriners Children’s Open — back-to-back at the same event, joining Byron Nelson as one of the only players to win it in consecutive years.
4. 2026 Genesis Scottish Open — the comeback win, 17-under, ending a near-three-year drought.

His major résumé includes a tie for second at the 2023 Open Championship, a tie for eighth at the 2023 U.S. Open, a tie for 16th at the 2023 Masters, and a tie for third at the 2026 U.S. Open. He’s played two Presidents Cups for the International Team (2022 and 2024), and as of early August 2026, he sits No. 5 in the International standings — inside the automatic qualifying line for a third Presidents Cup appearance at Medinah Country Club this September.

Then there’s the moment that has nothing to do with the PGA Tour at all. In March 2026, playing in TGL’s simulator golf league for Tiger Woods’ team, Jupiter Links, Kim holed a 138-yard tee shot for an ace on the 14th hole to help beat The Bay and send Jupiter Links to the playoffs. Woods, his captain, lost his composure on the sideline. It’s a genuine hole-in-one — it just won’t show up in his official PGA Tour stats.

Is Tom Kim Playing in the 2026 Masters?

Is Tom Kim playing in the Masters? No. Tom Kim missed the 2026 Masters, his first absence from the tournament since his 2023 debut, after his ranking fell outside qualifying range during his slump. His Scottish Open win, though, locked in his return: a win inside the qualifying window secures a spot in the 2027 Masters and the 2027 PGA Championship.

Tom Kim’s RBC Canadian Open History

Tom Kim’s best finish at the RBC Canadian Open remains a tie for fourth in 2024, when he closed with a 64 at Hamilton Golf & Country Club. He missed the cut there in 2025.

In 2026, at TPC Toronto’s Osprey Valley North Course, he finished tied for 15th at 10-under, earning $159,250 — a solid week, if not a return to that 2024 form. The event has never been a signature result for Kim, but it’s a reliable checkpoint for tracking where his game stands each June, right between the U.S. Open and the Open Championship on the calendar.

What’s in Tom Kim’s Bag? His 2026 WITB

Kim plays a Titleist-heavy setup, and it barely changed between his June 2026 bag and the one he used to win the Scottish Open in July, with one notable exception.

The swap that mattered: between June and his Scottish Open win, Kim switched from a Scotty Cameron TTG88 prototype putter to a Scotty Cameron Timeless GSS Tour prototype. Everything else in the bag stayed nearly identical, right down to the Golf Pride MCC Align grips, which tells you the putter, not the ball-striking gear, was the real equipment story of his comeback.

Tom Kim’s Net Worth and Career Earnings

Tom Kim’s career PGA Tour earnings crossed $14.16 million through early 2025, according to Spotrac’s payout data. That total has grown since — a U.S. Open top-three check, a Scottish Open winner’s share from a $9 million-plus purse, and other 2026 top-10s all layered on top, though the Tour doesn’t publish a single running total the way it updates a live stat like OWGR.

Outlets that track athlete net worth generally estimate his total net worth, prize money plus endorsements from sponsors like Nike, at somewhere around $10 million as of 2026. One caveat: treat that figure as a rough outside estimate, not gospel. No golfer publishes an audited net-worth statement, and every “net worth” site is working from the same public prize data with its own guess at endorsement value layered on top.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened with Tom Kim?

He went from a three-time PGA Tour winner by age 20 to missing the 2026 Masters during a near-three-year form slump, then won the 2026 Genesis Scottish Open to end the drought.

Are Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim still friends?

Yes. Reports describe them as close, regular practice partners, even though Scheffler beat Kim in a playoff at the 2024 Travelers Championship.

Does Tom Kim have to go to the military?

Yes, unless he wins an Olympic medal or Asian Games gold before he ages out of his deferral. South Korea requires 18 to 21 months of service from able-bodied men.

Is Tom Kim married?

Yes. He married Lee Seo-yeon in a private ceremony in late 2025.

How old is Tom Kim?

He’s 24, born June 21, 2002.

How tall is Tom Kim?

6 feet (183 cm).

Did Tom Kim go to college?

No. He turned professional at 15, in 2018, straight out of junior golf.

Final Word

Tom Kim’s story right now isn’t really about talent — nobody doubted that at 20. It’s about whether a fresh coach, a new putter and a settled personal life hold up over a full season, not just one hot week in Scotland.

The RBC Canadian Open T15, not the major finishes, might be the more honest signal: solid, not spectacular, exactly what you’d expect from a player rebuilding rather than one who’s fully arrived. Watch his results through the Presidents Cup in September — that’ll tell you more about this comeback than any single win did.

If you’re curious about another young player who turned outside pressure into fast major success, our profile of Ruoning Yin’s rise to World No. 1 is a good next read.