LONDON \u2014 South Korea\u2019s Tom Kim ended a three-year wait for a professional golf title with a two-shot victory in the Scottish Open on Sunday (Monday in Manila).<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old, who had tumbled down the world rankings, showed his quality with a superb final round of 64 to finish on 17 under par at North Berwick.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s Min Woo Lee was the runner-up as local hero Robert MacIntyre faltered in pursuit of a second Scottish Open title, ending four shots adrift alongside England\u2019s Matt Fitzpatrick.<\/p>\n
MacIntyre, Lee and Fitzpatrick had shared the lead after the fog-disrupted third round was completed earlier on Sunday.<\/p>\n
But it was Kim, the only player to avoid a bogey in the fourth round, who pounced from one shot back.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n As well as a winner\u2019s prize of \u00a31.2 million ($1.6 million), Kim\u2019s victory also secured his place at next year\u2019s US Masters.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t really wrap my mind over it,\u201d said an emotional Kim. \u201cIt\u2019s really special and I\u2019m just at a loss for words.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously I\u2019ve had a tough couple years. I got to taste a lot of that humble pie and I got to really learn about myself and I\u2019m still trying to grow, still trying to learn.<\/p>\n \u201cStill got a long way to go. But this one I wanted to dedicate to the people that were in my corner the whole time and struggled with me and who celebrated with me.\u201d<\/p>\n Rory McIlroy\u2019s third-round 73 left the world number two with too large a deficit to make up, even though he equaled Kim\u2019s closing six-under 64, the lowest score of the day.<\/p>\n The Northern Irishman defended his US Masters title in April.<\/p>\n And his performances over the past few days on a links or coastal course in Scotland should encourage McIlroy ahead of the similar conditions he can expect to encounter during next week\u2019s British Open at Royal Birkdale, near Liverpool. AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2014 South Korea\u2019s Tom Kim ended a three-year wait for a professional golf title with a two-shot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2635,1624,3904,14697,1399,2191,12857,2874,1562,399,519,1578,14696,403,14566],"class_list":["post-35900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-robert-macintyre","tag-british-open","tag-final-round","tag-golf-championship","tag-golf-victory","tag-matt-fitzpatrick","tag-min-woo-lee","tag-north-berwick","tag-professional-golf","tag-robert-macintyre","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-royal-birkdale","tag-scottish-open","tag-seo-meta-keywords-tom-kim","tag-south-korea","tag-us-masters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}