Michael Kim stood over a 24-foot putt on the 18th green Friday knowing exactly what it meant. Miss it, and he walks off with a very good round. Make it, and he joins a list of just 16 players in PGA Tour history to ever shoot 59. He made it. The 33-year-old had already put himself in position with his approach on the par-5 18th, a wedge shot from the fairway that rolled up to the fringe. That left him with one putt standing between him and the history books, and Kim knew precisely what not to do. "I tend to leave those short when it's that uphill and I just, last thing was just get it there, just don't leave it short," Kim said. He didn't leave it short. The putt found the bottom of the cup, and Kim let out a series of fist pumps that told you everything about how much that number meant to him.
He wasn't chasing this by accident
Kim didn't stumble into a 59. Walking into the closing stretch, he knew exactly what was on the line and made a conscious decision to go after it rather than hope it happened.
"I just kind of told myself like, 'Hey, this is the way, this is the moment to get into the history books and let's go for it, let's not try to luck our way into it, let's try to step up and hit some really good shots,'" he said.
The round itself was a study in momentum. Kim caught fire starting on the third hole, stringing together five straight birdies. He settled for a par on the eighth, then ripped off birdies on three of the next four holes. And just when it looked like the round might cool off, he closed with four birdies in a row to set up that putt on 18.
The putter did the heavy lifting
Eleven birdies in total, and eight of them came from beyond 10 feet. That's not a round built on tap-ins. That's a putter working exactly the way Kim wanted it to all day.
"When you hit a putt and it does exactly what you kind of envisioned before you hit it, it's an awesome feeling," Kim said. "Felt like that all day out there."
The lead is real, but the job isn't done
The 59 vaulted Kim into a three-shot lead over Ben Kohles heading into the weekend at the 3M Open. He's not getting ahead of himself about it though.
"Today was an awesome day, but still, I'm only halfway there so still need to kind of get focused up for the weekend," Kim said.
Context matters here too. Kim's 59 is the fourth sub-60 round on the PGA Tour since 2024, following Jake Knapp's effort in the first round of the 2025 Cognizant Classic. The all-time low still belongs to Jim Furyk, who carded a 58 at the 2016 Travelers Championship. Kim's round doesn't touch that record, but it puts him in genuinely rare company, and with a three-shot cushion, he's got every reason to believe the weekend could bring more history.