Michael Kim shoots 59 at the 3M Open — 12 birdies, no bogeys, and a putt to remember
Michael Kim shot a 12-under-par 59 at the 3M Open on Friday, July 24, 2026, becoming the 15th golfer to break 60 in a US PGA Tour round. The score included 12 birdies and not a single bogey across 18 holes at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota (BBC Sport).
Kim birdied his final four holes — 15, 16, 17 and 18 — and capped the round with a 24-foot birdie putt on the 18th green. His previous best round on tour was a 62. The 33-year-old, born in Seoul, led by three shots over Ben Kohles when the second round finished (PGA Tour).
It was the 16th sub-60 round ever recorded on the PGA Tour and the first of the 2026 season (PGA Tour). Remarkably, it was also the second 59 shot in as many days at a PGA Tour-sanctioned event (Golfweek).
Jim Furyk holds the outright PGA Tour record of 58, shot at the 2016 Travelers Championship. Furyk also carded a 59 at the 2013 BMW Championship, making him the only player besides Kim on the list of golfers with multiple sub-60 rounds to their name — though Kim's 59 stands as his first (BBC Sport).
World number one Scottie Scheffler was also in the field at TPC Twin Cities. After 36 holes, Scheffler sat seven shots behind Kim (Golf Channel).
For a sense of what Kim did: a "bogey" is a score of one over par on a hole. Kim made none. He birdied — one under par — a dozen times. On a par-71 course, that is 12 under for the day. The math is simple; the golf is not. Every putt has to drop, every approach has to find the right level of the green, and the scorecard has to stay clean for the full four and a half hours it takes to walk 18 holes at this level.
What makes a 59 land differently from, say, an opening 62 is the closing stretch. Kim needed birdies on 15 through 18 to get there, and he produced them. The 24-footer on the last green is the kind of putt that, from three feet shorter, is routine. From 24 feet, with a number in the 50s staring back, it is the putt that separates a great round from one that gets its own Wikipedia page.
Kim now carries a three-shot lead into the weekend. The 3M Open continues with the third round on Saturday, July 25.
