Tom Kim took a bath in the river at Oak Hill Country Club on Thursday afternoon.
As wild as it sounds, that’s the exact situation Kim found himself in late during his opening round at the PGA Championship.
Kim hit his drive into the water — well, into the mud — on the par-4 sixth on Thursday afternoon. He started wading through the weeds to look for his ball, as one does. But when he came back out to the fairway, Kim was absolutely covered in mud.
It was all over him.
In Kim’s defense, it looked like he tried to mitigate the damage. He took off his shoes and rolled his pants up to his knees, but it doesn’t look like it did anything to help whatsoever.
So, Kim walked back to the creek that went through the fairway and hopped right in.
Just watch:
“As soon as I went in, it was kind of sketch,” he said on ESPN. “But I mean, it’s a major championship. I’m fighting for every single stroke I have. And then it got dark. Once my foot got in, there’s no looking back. I went full in, it just got my shirt and everything. There was one point where I just sunk in. I was steady for a minute, I couldn’t get myself out.”
The “bath” actually worked out pretty well. Kim got most of the mud off of him, or as much as he could, though he finished the rest of the round with his pants rolled up.
“It couldn’t get any worse,” he said, laughing. “I was wet enough, so I thought I might as well just go into the water and wash myself off.”
And after all that, he still saved his bogey on the hole — which, honestly, feels pretty good considering the circumstances.
Kim finished his round with a 3-over 73, and was well behind leader Eric Cole at 5-under. He then actually doubled over with laughter on ESPN while checking his phone after the round, realizing that everyone saw what had happened to him.
Next time, just let the ball go.