FEDEX ST. JUDE CHAMPIONSHIP

August 10, 2023

Tom Kim

TPC Southwind

Quick Quotes

Q. Kind of assess your round today. Obviously off to a good start.

TOM KIM: Yeah, played really solid for the first 13, 14 holes. Kind of had a few hiccups coming in, but no, I played pretty good today, and definitely played pretty stress free for most of the way.

Obviously a little bit -- wasn't my best coming in, but nice to kind of be able to save the round and finish on a good note.

Q. What have you been doing over the last couple weeks to get that ankle feeling right?

TOM KIM: Yeah, it's been a lot of rehab, man. It's been boring. I'm not going to lie to you.

Obviously had the MRI as soon as I came back and was told to make sure to always be careful with it, making sure that I wasn't going to play right away, which is really tough because I felt like I had a great week at The Open championship. I would have loved to play at Wyndham because I was playing well, and that's a course that I won the year before.

It was really hard just to be able to sit at home and kind of just watch on TV. Would have loved to be able to compete. But I had to make sure I wasn't going to do anything bad to my ankle, make it worse or anything. There was a lot of icing, a lot of rehab.

Kind of nice to be able to -- I was kind of feeling just a little naked I would say just because I only had two weeks off, but just because of coming off of that rehab, I felt like it was very new out here for some reason, but it was nice to see some good birdies and some good shots.

Q. How did it feel out there walking around on it?

TOM KIM: It was wet, man, gosh. It's one of the wettest rounds I've played in long time.

Q. How was the ankle?

TOM KIM: Obviously that doesn't help because there's a lot of -- you have to use a lot of your muscles around your legs to be able to push through, and it's just kind of not what I need, to be honest. I would like to be able to walk on kind of flat areas and dry, just take the stress off my ankle.

It's going to be a few -- I'm going to need to be able to watch it for the next few days, making sure I don't do anything bad because it's going to take a few weeks to fully heal. Just got to make sure I watch it.

Q. Can I ask you a fashion statement out there with the pants?

TOM KIM: I don't know, man. It's like, I think a lot of people are actually having fun out of it, way more than I thought. It was just, I didn't want to get myself dirty. Just don't like it. I've had a really bad week once this year, so just trying to stay away from it really.

It was just kind of how I did it back in the old days. I didn't have unlimited pants, so I had to make sure I was able to use those pants for a really long time, so I had to make sure they stayed really clean.

A lot of people seemed to have a lot of laughs on it, but I just thought it was pretty convenient. I chose the wrong color, obviously, for the day, but my caddie Joe actually said he doesn't really care what I do as long as I make birdies and eagles, so it kind of worked.

Q. Maybe you'll do it every day now?

TOM KIM: Maybe.

Q. It seemed like you were pretty ready to get out of the clothes.

TOM KIM: I was. Even though I folded it up, they were still so wet that it still got really dirty. The first thing on my mind after 9, I was ready to leave and change. That was the first thing on my mind. As soon as I went in, I had media requests, I said, can I change, and I feel kind of clean.

Q. Do you know what your scripting is the next few days? Are you going to make any changes to pant colors?

TOM KIM: Yeah, I like to just keep it simple really. I make sure I know what I'm wearing every day before the week. But I'll probably make sure -- that's the thing, like I didn't bring 10 pairs of pants. I'm traveling for a few weeks, so I try to make my travel pretty light.

Definitely not white tomorrow, that's for sure.

Q. Is that same type of pant coming back tomorrow?

TOM KIM: I don't know, man. Maybe. If it's really wet -- I don't know, we'll see.