Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports
Tom Kim’s reaction to going viral for falling the mud is just as priceless as the actual moment it happened.
Tom Kim has been the center of attention at the PGA Championship. While the internet has been able to enjoy his viral moment, once Kim found out, his reaction may have been better than the whole incident. Watching him scroll and scroll on his phone while his face turned red was priceless. He knew then that an embarrassing moment didn’t just happen between him and his caddy but that the whole world knew.
Kim handled it gracefully, but his reaction to going viral is one of the best things caught on camera during Thursday’s coverage of the PGA Championship.
In his post-round interview on ESPN’s Michael Eaves, he was a good sport, breaking down exactly what happened. Kim thought his ball crossed the water, and it was in the mud. If he could find it, Kim was going to try and get it out without losing too many strokes.
“As soon as I went in, It was kind of sketch,” Kim said. “It’s a major championship — I’m fighting for every single stroke I have. Then it got dark — once my foot got in, I was like, there is no looking back. I went full in, and it got my shirt and everything. There was one point where I just sunk in — I couldn’t get myself out.”
He had to crawl out of the mud, but that wasn’t where the incident ended — it only got better. The mud was up to his waist. Then Kim disappeared on the other side of the hill, and from the camera angle, it looked like he fell again, but it was him cleaning up his legs. He took a bath, which of course, he did — that’s truly what made it so much better.
Eaves said he didn’t smell as bad as he expected Kim to, which added to the whole spectacle when Kim said, “You wanna smell my hand?”
Kim handled the situation better than most 20-year-olds would, which shows what kind of person he is. He knows the severity of what it means to play in a major championship, so Kim was going to do whatever he had to do, even if it meant sinking into the mud and going viral.
