With three holes to go, Tom Kim appeared to be on track to book his place at Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado, host of next week’s BMW Championship – the second of three rounds of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

He was 5 under par for the championship after 15 holes, a round that included four birdies and no bogeys to that point. He was in the top 50 players in the FedEx Cup rankings, the minimum score needed to qualify for the BMW Championship. Those who finish in the top 50 also qualify for next year’s eight signature events, a huge incentive for FedEx St. Jude Championship participants to play well.

Kim was not at his best this week, fighting not for a top 50 spot, but for one. He seemed to have succeeded until he hit three straight sixes on the last three holes. A bogey on the easy par 5 16th was a harbinger of what was to come. Kim hit a double on both 17th and 18th to finish 1 under par and 51st in the FedEx Cup. He landed in the water left of the fairway on the 72nd hole, sealing his fate.

“I actually drove well. A bogey on hole 16 cost me a lot,” said Kim.

“Then I hit a good drive and then another really bad miss, everything is fine on the left and it’s off on the right. I knew I needed something special on the last shot and I needed to hit a good drive, but the wind shifted and started to pick up and it didn’t work out.”

Kim’s unfortunate result allowed Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley to sneak in as the 50th-ranked player.

“This season has just been — it’s just been that way. I played really good golf and then had some tough finishes. I feel like 2024 really kicked my butt. But I’ve gotten so much better. I’ve fought really hard to get myself into this situation. I was over 90 before we had this run and it looks like I’m going to miss by a point. But it is what it is,” Kim said.

“I told myself before today that if I don’t play well, I’m really going to finish 51st. I told myself if that happens, I’ve done everything I can to get into the top 50 and hopefully give myself a shot at the Tour Championship. But I didn’t do that and I’m going to look forward to a really good offseason because I’m pretty tired.”

Kim has every reason to be tired. Between the CJ Cup Byron Nelson and the Rocket Mortgage Classic, he played nine weeks in a row, including a runner-up finish to Scottie Scheffler at the Travelers Championship. Then last month, Kim tied for 15th at the Scottish Open, missed the cut at Royal Troon and threatened the podium in Paris with a sole eighth place finish – all before this week in Memphis. It’s been a turbulent season for the talented 22-year-old.

“It’s been a long road. I think I just haven’t been mentally fit enough in the last few weeks,” Kim admitted.

“Fifty-one, 52, 50, it doesn’t matter. I’m just looking forward to resting and getting ready for next year.”

Kim will play for the international team at this year’s Presidents Cup, the tournament that made him hugely famous two years ago at Quail Hollow. But he sounded undecided about whether or not he will compete regularly this fall. The long, hard journey of crossing the country – and in some cases, oceans – seems to have caught up with him.

“This year has been really hard for me personally. I’ve gone through a lot of changes,” Kim said.

“I played good golf and probably had five bad rounds that cost me maybe a top five, a top 10, things like that. I finished the first and second rounds, I think, 5 over par on the last couple of holes. When things don’t go the way you want them to, things don’t go the way you want them to. It just goes to show that in a good year, it could have been 30th rather than 51st.”

Despite the defeat, which will sting for a long time, he remained positive. But rest assured, Kim will bounce back in 2025, perhaps with a big win.

Jack Milko is the golf editor at SB Nations Playing Through. Be sure to check out: @_Playthrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well as.