{"id":437857,"date":"2026-03-23T19:55:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T19:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=437857"},"modified":"2026-03-23T19:55:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T19:55:56","slug":"s-h-kim-seeing-conscription-in-the-near-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/s-h-kim-seeing-conscription-in-the-near-future\/","title":{"rendered":"S.H. Kim Seeing Conscription In The Near Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Normally, when a player needs to step back from a sport, it is for medical reasons.\u00a0 In the past year, several players, including Tiger Woods<\/a>, sustained injuries that required medical attention to heal.\u00a0 In the PGA, there have been times when a player had to step back from the main Tour in order to get back on their feet after losing their membership.\u00a0 S.H. Kim, however, will need to take a step back to fulfill mandatory military service in his home country, South Korea.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

S.H. Kim And The PGA<\/span><\/h2>\n

For the 2026 season, Kim has been doing fairly well for himself.\u00a0 He made the cut in five out of the seven events he has been in.\u00a0 Kim also made the top 25 twice so far this season.\u00a0 So with the upcoming conscription, he is finding himself limited in what he can do.\u00a0 This includes the idea that he will miss the Masters Tournament, even if he qualifies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kim commented on the issue<\/a>, saying that he will be going as soon as the Valero finishes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m playing until Valero,\u201d he said through a translator. \u201cAnything after that is a lot of factors going into play. I might come back again this year. First, I have to go back to Korea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This is his first year with a Tour Card<\/a> as well, and he was given a travel extension at the start of the season.\u00a0 However, in South Korea, military service is compulsory with a minimum of two years.\u00a0 The PGA is working to keep Kim on the field, even if it is just on the Korean circuit when he can\u2019t come to the States.\u00a0 The plan is to keep him in playing shape, as there have been players who lost their edge after service.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not The First Time<\/span><\/h2>\n

S.H. Kim is not the first Korean player on the PGA Tour, nor was he the first to need to go back home for boot camp.\u00a0 Sangmoon Bae played the 2015 President\u2019s Cup and then went straight to his service time.\u00a0 Similar story for Seung-yul Noh, who finished his service just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0 During their service time, they saw a decline in their performance and were not quite up to par.\u00a0 It\u2019s not limited to golf either.\u00a0 K-pop fans have seen some of their favorite boy bands temporarily break up for the service.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

S.H. Kim In The PGA<\/span><\/h2>\n

By law, S.H. Kim needs to serve at least two years.\u00a0 This will make tournaments complicated for him.\u00a0 There is also the complication of the Asian Games coming in the fall.\u00a0 The PGA wants to keep Kim on his toes for that and wants him to be in his best condition.\u00a0 The PGA is trying to be prepared<\/a> for it so that players like Kim won’t go through a slump after their return.\u00a0 For now, though, for his first season as a card-holding member, Kim is seeing it being cut short.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Corey Perrine\/Florida Times-Union \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Normally, when a player needs to step back from a sport, it is for medical reasons.\u00a0 In the past year, several players, including Tiger Woods, sustained injuries that required medical attention to heal.\u00a0 In the PGA, there have been times when a player had to step back from the main Tour in order to get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":437261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,19],"tags":[275,8220,165],"class_list":["post-437857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-masters-tournament","tag-s-h-kim","tag-valero-texas-open"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437858,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437857\/revisions\/437858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}