Oakmont’s driving range had all but cleared out as Tuesday afternoon at the U.S. Open slowly morphed into evening. A couple of players came and went, passing through what had been a bustling thoroughfare for preparation hours earlier but was now just a walkway to the parking lot, most of them well aware of the grueling physical and mental test ahead and the energy required.

Yet there was Tom Kim, tucked in the far corner of the range, up against the media center that lined the right side of the practice area.

Paul Tesori, then Kim’s caddie, bent into a squat, dipping low to get the exact camera angle Kim needed as he sent ball after ball soaring into the hilly horizon line of the Allegheny Mountains. After each swing, Kim stopped to analyze the video and ask a few questions that seemed directed to nobody in particular, until you realized his wireless earbuds were spitting out feedback from someone (Kim declined to say who).

“I need to bend more?” Kim asked after one poor swing.

An empty bucket of balls lay beside Kim, who was now on his sixth divot line. Another full bucket sat at the ready.

One of the few players still hammering balls late into the day, Kim’s part of a club most attempt to avoid: the searchers. The unfortunate individuals desperately grasping for a feeling, a swing thought, or a moment of mental clarity that might wriggle them out of the debilitating straitjacket of unconfident golf. It’s no place to be late in a practice round of a major championship, an admission that whatever you have right now isn’t good enough for the rest of the week. For a keen-eyed prognosticator, it’s usually a good indication of who won’t win.

“One more,” Kim told Tesori confidently after a pure strike.

Set up over the ball, Kim took a deep breath and swung. Seemingly simultaneous to contact, his right hand flew off the club. He hated it. And without talking, Kim grabbed another ball and Tesori squatted down for another video. Maybe Kim meant one more bucket.

Kim’s on the search. He has been for months. Each time he thinks he’s found something, it proves fleeting.

It’s frustrating. Confusing. Jarring.

It’s new and uncomfortable. Kim, 23, hasn’t lived in a world where golf is hard. He was dominant as a 13-year-old junior in the Philippines and again as a newly minted pro in Thailand at age 15, finding quick success on the Asian and Korean tours. By the time he reached the PGA TOUR, he had won seven times worldwide. There was no learning curve coming to America. He won his third start as a TOUR member – the 2022 Wyndham Championship – and added another win three months later at the Shriners Children’s Open, becoming the first player since Tiger Woods to win twice on TOUR before turning 21. He became the darling of multiple International Teams at the Presidents Cup, almost single-handedly reinvigorating hope that they could finally beat the Americans. He was proclaimed a global superstar, and there was reason to believe it. Long term, there still is.

But right now? Kim is far from it.

“It’s very humbling,” he said, late Sunday in the shadows of the Oakmont clubhouse, following another lackluster week.

Kim begins The Open Championship devoid of grandeur or expectations. At No. 88 in the FedExCup, he’s outside the postseason and well outside Signature Event qualification. More pressing for Kim, he’s outside the conversation. Kim, as we’ve come to know, loves being in it. He loves contending. He loves being talked about. He loves being in the mix. After his early career success, the idea that he wouldn’t felt impossible. He’s thrived in this type of golf before, with a third-place finish at the Genesis Scottish Open in 2022 and a runner-up at The Open in 2023. Yet he arrives in Northern Ireland off the minds of most.

It’s a reminder of golf’s unapologetic fickleness. Even top talent loses its game. One of the only contemporaries of Kim’s age and success, Nick Dunlap, is amidst a similar stretch. Progress is not linear. Kim and Dunlap have seen both sides of that spectrum, reaching heights unexpected and downfalls more surprising in the aftermath.

How do you go about fixing something that has never broken? Kim said he went through brief struggles as a junior, but they never lasted for more than a few starts. His current problems have persisted for the better part of a year. Do you stay the course, trusting it will come back as it always has? Do you decide to change course? And if you do, when?

They are questions without clear answers, though Kim’s certainly moving in one direction more than the other. Kim and Tesori mutually parted ways ahead of the John Deere Classic, with Joel Stock taking over the full-time duties. Kim’s not working with any swing coach consistently either, relying now on only himself to get out of this funk.

For Kim, the struggles are both physical and mental, though the overriding roadblock is the one stuck in his head. Frequent playing partners of Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth back in Dallas, Kim has grown used to witnessing perfection. Day in, day out. Rain or shine. Whether the body feels good or not. At home or at a tournament. With just enough gazing around, Kim developed a debilitating expectation – every one of his shots needed to be perfect.

“I've been trying to not miss golf shots, which is leading to missing more golf shots,” Kim said.

Instead of thinking of the ideal landing spot, Kim thought of the ideal place to miss. That’s smart, at times, but there has to be a freedom to attack when the time is right. That’s been absent from his game.

The late-night range session didn’t fix Kim’s technical deficiencies, but it did play a part in realizing he had fallen into that mindset.

“It was a come-to-Jesus moment, and I was just like, ‘Man, I can hit bad golf shots. I'm a human being.’ Just don't have mental mistakes,” Kim said, “And this week was the best it's been.”

Yet that yielded only a T33 finish at the U.S. Open, his best since his lone top 10 of the season at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, illustrating that the issues run deeper.

For the last year or so, pace of play has lingered on Kim’s mind. As the issue became more prevalent on TOUR, and more widely talked about, Kim emerged as one of the critics’ main targets. The data backed it up, Kim said. He was slower than the average player. That’s not how he wanted to be viewed, nor is it the player he felt he could be. Kim’s pace has improved this season, he said, but without confidence in his swing or mental approach, it’s been difficult to trust himself to play quickly, adding another mental hurdle to overcome.

That brings us to the swing issues. Over the offseason, Kim attempted to make several swing tweaks to elevate his game further. Those tweaks, aimed at ailing a nagging right miss, have not set in reliably. Mostly, they’ve “backfired,” Kim said earlier this season. The root of the issues largely stems from Kim’s changing body, he said. He could feel himself losing stamina on the weekends of tournaments, so over the last year, he prioritized losing weight and getting stronger. Good for his health, but bad for his swing, as it turned out.

Kim has gained a few yards off the tee but has become more wayward, typically his calling card. That decline in accuracy has pushed him outside the top 120 in strokes gained off the tee for the first time in his career (he's currently 130th). His irons have also regressed. He ranked 10th in Strokes Gained: Approach in 2023, dropped to 49th in 2024 and is currently 50th.

Kim has worked with Cameron McCormick, Chris Como and Sam Cyr in recent years. Now, Kim is on his own. He resonates with Max Homa’s struggles. When Homa’s swing clicked ahead of the PGA Championship, it was because he prioritized his own feels over any coach’s technical feedback.

“I know this is right technically, but like, this isn't me, it's just not working … It doesn’t feel like me,” Kim said at the Genesis Scottish Open. “I need to feel what works for me, because I'm the one hitting the golf shots.”

Kim feels the tide turning. After finishing 45th at the Travelers and missing the cut at the Rocket Classic, Kim found a swing feel at the John Deere that he credits partially to Jason Day. After shooting over par in the first round, Kim picked Day’s brain on the back of the range. Day gave Kim a tip, which helped him shoot 5-under in the second round and nearly fight back onto the cutline. Kim stayed in the Quad Cities over the weekend, spending several hours on back range Saturday and Sunday, drilling in the feel. Then Kim finished 17th at the Genesis Scottish Open last week, his second top-20 of the season. He began the day just four off the lead but struggled to generate many chances in a 1-over 71 that dropped him a few spots on the leaderboard.

“I was top 20 in the world for three years," he added "... I had times where I would go a little away from it, but two months later, I'd be right back there, and it's the first time where I just haven't really had much success after a struggle.

Kim is optimistic that he’s on the upward trajectory, but he will need more than the Genesis Scottish Open to prove it to the world and regain the status of a burgeoning star. As recently as May, Kim was playing an Additional Event opposite to a Signature Event. He needed a sponsor exemption to play the Travelers, a tournament he lost in a playoff the year prior. He’s far from the crucial top-50 FedExCup threshold that will guarantee him Signature Event starts next year. However good the game feels, Kim needs results, and he needs them quickly.

But Kim, still just 23, is trying to embrace the struggles. Even as he walks in unknown territory, trying to solve them.

“I think it's something that I needed. I think over time, being 20 years old and getting everything early, I think it's a good kick in the butt to keep your mind going,” Kim said. “Hopefully, I still got a few more years ahead of me.”