Michael Kim

Kim struggled mightily for three years following his only Tour win in 2018 and was relegated back to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022, where he played well enough to regain his card. He followed it up with one of his best years, recording four top-10s in 2023. Although he doesn't stand out in any particular area, he gained strokes in every category except for off-the-tee, where he does have solid length as he ranked 58th driving distance. He's not particularly exciting from a fantasy standpoint, but is capable of getting into contention on weeks when the putter gets hot.

Kim earned his PGA Tour card for the 2022-23 season via his finish of 19th in the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Eligibility Points List, tallying 12 top-25 results in 25 starts on the KFT in 2022. He's no stranger to life at the PGA Tour level, having appeared in 164 total events dating all the way back to 2013 when he tied for 17th at the U.S. Open as an amateur. Max Homa -- Kim's former teammate at Cal-Berkeley -- has raved about Kim's talent, though the latter has finished top 100 in the FedExCup standings just twice through six seasons with at least 15 starts on the PGA Tour.

Kim can certainly putt, there's no doubt about that, but it's the other parts of his game that leave a lot of questions unanswered. Statistically, last season was Kim's worst on the PGA Tour, but he managed to put everything together for four days in July and ended up with a win at the John Deere Classic. Outside of that win, the season was a disaster. The strange this is, the season prior, was the nothing like last season as Kim showed a lot of consistency throughout. One reason was his ball striking, which was much better two seasons ago than it was last season. For whatever reason, Kim went off the rails early last season and didn't recover until his win at the John Deere Classic. He's not that far away from putting it all together, but his performance post-victory last season is a little troubling. It all adds up to a guy who needs a little more time to get everything figured out, which he probably will, but not this season.

It's amazing how many players in this range, roughly 85th on the FedEx list and lower, played well in the fall, and did very little during the 2017 portion of the season. Kim is no exception as his best finish came in the fall where he posted a T3 at the Safeway Open. It's important to point out that guys who build their resumes during the fall, generally aren't much help for fantasy players that start their season in January. They may end up retaining their card for the next season, but that's of no help when you need guys to earn checks in July. That said, Kim did show improvement from his rookie season, but not nearly enough to warrant a salary cap selection this season.

Kim's rookie season probably didn't go quite as he'd hoped, but with his card secured via the points list, he's surely satisfied. Much like many guys like that make enough points, but not enough money to crack the top-125, Kim make plenty of cuts, but didn't have enough high-end finishes. Kim posted four top-25s, but no top-10s last season and that is something he'll have to improve upon if he's to keep his card for next year. Kim is a decent salary cap selection, only because his price is low and he has full privileges for the upcoming season. In draft leagues, he may go undrafted.