The second season of Netflix's Full Swing drops on Wednesday, March 6. ClutchPoints spoke with two-time PGA winner Tom Kim before its release.
Netflix viewers unfamiliar with Kim are sure to be smitten with the rising PGA Tour star, featured in the standout episode four, “Prove It”. The episode follows the smiley 21-year-old as he learns the ropes of the tour — literally, he gets lost at Augusta National — and plunges into mud at the PGA Championship.
We also get a sense of Tom Kim's bubbly personality, inviting sense of humor, and competitive mettle. Kim contends at the 2023 Open Championship despite tearing a tendon on his foot, then defends his title at the Shriner's Children's Open.
Here's my conversation with Kim ahead of the premiere of Full Swing Season 2, edited for clarity.
Tom Kim-Full Swing interview
ClutchPoints: Is there anything Netflix missed that you wanted in, or anything they included that you didn't?
Tom Kim: Um … No, no really, to be honest. It's a 45-minute episode, I think, and we shot a lot of hours. I was like, ‘We only have 45 minutes?' We shot from February and January to September and October. So, I was like, ‘Gosh, where did all the footage go?' But, obviously, you can't make the episode 30 hours long.
CP: How did the accidental Augusta clubhouse tour come about?
TK: As a rookie, my first time there, I actually made the trip before Augusta. But it's a different vibe once the tournament gets started. And I was just really casually looking for the player dining area. It's kind of like a maze where you don't really know the place that well. I definitely went to a place that I wasn't supposed to be. If Augusta is watching this, I do apologize. I did not mean to do it. I hope — I want to get invited again. Definitely didn't want to cross boundaries.
CP: The Augusta locker room looks really nice. Oak Hill? Not so much, at least based on what I saw in Full Swing. What are the nicest locker rooms on tour?
TK: Great question. I think the PLAYERS is really a nice one because player dining is literally right next to the locker room. It's so convenient. You go through one door and player dining is right there, instead of trying to go all the way around.
Augusta is really interesting because a lot of the guys just hang out in the caddie barn because the range is right there. The food's unbelievable there. You won't be able to bring your family inside, but as a player, personally, that's where we all were, before tee times and things like that.
You just have to put Augusta up there because Augusta is just Augusta. But I think for me, personally, PLAYERS is probably one of my favorites. As well, there's a lot of space. So, when you have 150 guys, you want space. You want your bag to fit comfortably.
CP: I noticed in the episode, Jordan Spieth is around a lot. You seem to have a nice relationship with him.
TK: Jordan and I, like — I moved to Dallas, and as a guy who just is starting out, he's helped a lot. We played a lot of practice rounds together. We played a lot of tournament rounds together. We played a lot at home. Sometimes we'd be playing nine at home and we might go even more. We might go play 14, 15 holes, just because it's the two of us, we're zooming in carts.
When we practice together I ask a lot of questions and he's obviously really, really nice to be able to answer them. We haven't been able to spend a lot of time — obviously, he has two kids now. He's on the board. So I don't see him as much. But before, when he had al little bit more time on his hands, we would practice a lot together. He's just been a very big mentor slash big brother who I can just go comfortably and ask a lot of questions.
Full Swing Season 2 is on Netflix now.
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