Kim Si-woo, who failed to earn a single dollar during his PGA Tour debut season in 2013, has emerged as the top Korean money winner in PGA Tour history after 312 tournaments.
Kim earned $826,666 by finishing tied for fourth at the Cadillac Championship held at the Doral Blue Monster Course (par 71) in Florida on Tuesday (Korea time), overtaking Im Sung-jae to claim the No. 1 spot in career earnings among Korean players.
With total earnings of $35,696,846 (approximately 52.4 billion won), Kim moved up one notch to 43rd on the all-time career earnings list, while Im dropped to 44th with $35,551,375. K.J. Choi, once the leader among Korean players, continues to slide down to 49th with $32,803,596.
As recently as April last year, Choi held the top spot among Korean players in career earnings, before passing the title to Im. Just over a year later, Kim has taken over the position.
In his debut season in 2013, Kim failed to collect any prize money across eight tournaments, missing the cut in seven and withdrawing from one. He began accumulating earnings in earnest during the 2015-2016 season, when he pocketed $3,086,369.
Kim is having his best season yet, competing in 12 tournaments this year. He has recorded six top-10 finishes, including a tie for sixth at The American Express, a tie for second at the Farmers Insurance Open, a tie for third at the WM Phoenix Open, a tie for 10th at the Valero Texas Open, and his tied-for-fourth finish at this week's event. His season earnings stand at $4,798,605, ranking eighth on the money list. Kim is expected to comfortably surpass his personal single-season best of $5,397,030 set in 2023.
The all-time PGA Tour career earnings leader remains Tiger Woods of the United States, who has won $120,999,166 across 378 tournaments. However, this once-unassailable record has a strong chance of being broken this year. Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland and Scottie Scheffler of the United States, both still in red-hot form, are steadily closing the gap. McIlroy, second on the career earnings list with $114,696,641, trails Woods by $6,302,525, while Scheffler ranks third with $110,019,566, sitting $10,979,600 behind McIlroy.
