Tom Kim emotional after missing medal in Olympic men's golf, remaining eligible for mandatory military service

A medal earned at the Paris 2024 Olympics for South Korea’s Tom Kim could have exempted him from South Korea’s mandatory miliarty service policy.

For Kim, a medal finish would have kept his PGA career uninterrupted. Instead, he finished just off of the podium with an eighth-place finish as the United States’ Scottie Scheffler took home the gold medal.

Kim was seen emotional and wiping tears away after falling short of his Olympic dream.

🚨😢🇰🇷 Tom Kim is emotional in the scoring trailer. A podium finish was needed to avoid the prospect of mandatory military service. pic.twitter.com/4I7X0WGMhP

— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) August 4, 2024

Kim entered the final day of Olympic action three strokes out of bronze but after a double-bogey finish on 18 saw him finish in eighth.

“[I’ve] never been really emotional after a round,” Kim said after the event. “I think these emotions are surprising but I think it’s just all the hard work I’ve done this year to put myself in this position, those things are coming out. Just the things Scottie [Scheffler] said to me after the round really kind of came out and I’m just trying to hold it togethter.”

Scheffler was seen putting his arm around Kim after the 18th hole, where he appeared to be consoling his emotional friend.

Kim didn’t talk much about the situation specifically during the lead up to Sunday’s final round of Olympic golf action. Instead, he wanted to focus on golf.

“I think the easiest answer for us is we’re here to play good this week,” Kim said, via AP, when he and Byeong (Ben) Hun An held a pre-tournament news conference. “We are not focused on that. We are here to represent our country. And to be honest, I want me and Ben to be standing on that podium not for exemption but for our country.”

Military exemption is given out for South Korean men extremely limitedly. One of those exemptions includes winning an Olympic medal, or being awarded another sort of high honor recognized globally for their country.

There have been several similar situations in golf over the years. The most recent included Sungjae Im and Si Woo Kim who competed for South Korea at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. They didn’t medal, but participated in the Asian Games where Im and Kim played the together in team event with two South Korean amateurs. They would win the gold by 25 shots and thus earned their military exemption that way.

For Kim, he’s expected to have to serve 18-21 months of military service, which is standard for all able-bodied men in South Korea. In theory, that means he’ll be through with his service, back on the PGA Tour and ready by the time the next Olympics roll around.

Although, questions about how much an extended break in the middle of his career would effect his game long-term. In 2015, Sangmoon Bae said he lost his feel of how to play golf after halting his budding career to serve his country. He said that he hasn’t been the same since.

There are multiple other examples of South Korean golfers going on to enjoy much success after their military careers have ended, and Kim expects himself to join that list.

“It doesn’t worry me at all,” Kim said, in the same AP report. “It’s the way our country works, and good golf takes care of everything. Just because it happened to him doesn’t mean it happens to other people. You can’t say that it affected him at all. There could be different things that could have happened. I’m not really thinking about it.

“It’s not on my mind at all, I’m just trying to focus on my game.”