{"id":214897,"date":"2026-03-22T00:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T00:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/214897\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T00:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T00:51:10","slug":"dallas-resident-tom-kim-is-in-top-10-at-valspar-championship-as-sungjae-im-leads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/214897\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas resident Tom Kim is in top 10 at Valspar Championship as Sungjae Im leads"},"content":{"rendered":"

PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Sungjae Im was in position for a wire-to-wire victory in the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook after a slow start in his return from a wrist injury.<\/p>\n

Brandt Snedeker was right beside him in the final pairing \u2014 with a hot new putter in the bag.<\/p>\n

Im holed a sweeping 13-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th hole Saturday for a 2-under 69 and a two-stroke lead over Snedeker, the 45-year-old U.S. Presidents Cup captain playing on a sponsor exemption, and David Lipsky.<\/p>\n

Snedeker birdied three of the first four holes in a 67, and Lipsky had a 70 on the sunny afternoon with a high in the low-70s and wind gusting to 15 mph.<\/p>\n

Sports Roundup<\/p>\n

Get the latest D-FW sports news, analysis and opinion delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, Kevin Sherrington’s A La Carte.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

After missing two straight cuts in his return, Im led by a stroke after each of the first two rounds in firm and fast conditions on the Copperhead course, shooting 64-69.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t able to practice for two months,\u201d Im said. \u201cSo I think a lot of my shots that I didn\u2019t like from last year I was able to, once I started practicing, I was able to correct and it\u2019s just been consistently getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Im played the front nine in 3 under, with birdies on Nos. 1, 7 and 8. He bogeyed the par-4 12th and par-3 13th, and got the left-to-right putt to fall on 18 to get to 11-under 202.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really happy that my play was good on the finishing stretch, 16 through 18,\u201d Im said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m really thrilled about the birdie on the final hole, and to have a two-shot lead going into tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old South Korean player has two PGA Tour victories, the 2020 Honda Classic and 2021 Shriners Children\u2019s Open.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been awhile since I\u2019ve been in the lead like this,\u201d Im said. \u201dI\u2019m sure I will be nervous, but the best I can do is just to play my own game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snedeker won the last of his nine PGA Tour titles in 2018 and had only two top 10s in the last year. He switched to a mallet putter a few weeks ago, and has been on a tear on and around the greens this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI finished strong, made some good swings coming down the stretch,\u201d Snedeker said. \u201dRolling the ball so good, chipping the ball so good, if I can kind of get my long game under control a little bit we\u2019re going to have a good chance tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lipsky had five birdies and four bogeys. He\u2019s winless on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was up-and-down,\u201d Lipsky said. \u201cI didn\u2019t hit it as many fairways as I wanted to, nor greens. But overall the short game and the putter really saved me and kept me in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Fitzpatrick, second last week in The Players Championship, was 8 under along with Marco Penge. They each shot 68.<\/p>\n

Dallas resident Tom Kim is inside the top 10 in a tie for eighth after at 5 under. A pair of former Longhorns in Jordan Spieth and Doug Ghim are tied for 17th at 3 under.<\/p>\n

\"Doug<\/a>Sungjae Im leads Valspar Championship with Texas product Doug Ghim two shots back<\/a><\/p>\n

Defending champion and former Oklahoma State golfer Viktor Hovland missed the cut at Innisbrook.<\/p>\n

\"Jordan<\/a>D-FW\u2019s Jordan Spieth, Pierceson Coody off to strong starts at Valspar Championship<\/a><\/p>\n

The pair of Texas products are near the top of the leaderboard after a competitive first round.<\/p>\n

Find more golf coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Sungjae Im was in position for a wire-to-wire victory in the Valspar Championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,5407,54736,9395,154,84049],"class_list":["post-214897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-golf","tag-jordan-spieth","tag-pga","tag-sports","tag-tom-kim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}