An American has brilliantly taken delivery of the FedEx Open de la France trophy for a first time in 53-years but it has not been five-time major championship Brooks Koepka.
No, it was Koepka’s compatriot in Michael Kim who birdied the 16th and 17th holes and then got up-and-down from a final hole greenside bunker to hole a testing 15-foot par putt and in the process end a seven-year winless drought with victory in the outskirts of Versailles.
The 32-year-old had burst onto the pro scene in capturing the 2018 John Deere Classic by a tournament record of eight shots. In the process, he earned the final invitation to the 2018 Open Championship, ending T35th.
Sadly, the Korean-born Texan went well off the boil missing 19 cuts in 20 events on the PGA Tour in 2019 and, as of August 26, 2019, and fell to 502nd in the Official World Golf Ranking.
In the 2020–21 PGA Tour season, Kim made only nine cuts in thirty starts and finished 214th in the 2021 FedEx Cup. He lost his full PGA Tour Card. In 2021–22, Kim returned to the Korn Ferry Tour and regained his PGA Tour card for the 2022–23 PGA Tour season.
AN AMERICAN, FIRST IN 5⃣3⃣ YEARS, TAKES DELIVERY #OpendeFrance ..
As Michael Kim holds his nerve to end 17-year winless run
Read: https://t.co/ptuVq8tIha
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— Fatiha (@TOURMISS) September 21, 2025
Kim hinted of better times ahead when earlier this year he finished T2 at the 2025 WM Phoenix Open.
Now Kim has come from one shot behind heading into the final day.
England’s Marcus Armitage, who led the opening two rounds, along with Koepka and the Aussie duo of Min Woo Lee and Elvis Smylie, were putting themselves where they needed to be while other players making moves, produced an epic finish over the closing stretch at Golf de Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche.
At one stage there was no fewer than four players tied for the lead including Koepka whose effort to win only a second DP World Tour title since a first in Turkey in 2014, ended with a horror closing one-over inward nine holes in his eventual 68 for 4th place at 14-under.
Smylie produced a solid bogey-free 65 and his best round of the week to share second with Korean Jeong Weon Ko while Lee (69) and Armitage (68) were among four to share fifth place at 13-under.
Kim’s win is only a fourth by an American in Europe’s oldest continental Open since 1972 when currenlty 76-year-old Barry Jaeckel won the French premier event.
Kim said: “It feels amazing. I haven’t won a tournament since 2018 at the John Deere Classic and I really wanted to put on a good showing here this week.
“And I’m just so happy and grateful that I was able to come out with the victory.
“I’ve had a really good year on the PGA Tour this year. This feels like the perfect cherry on top and I hope to continue this throughout my career.”
Speaking about his fantastic finish, Kim added: “To be honest I felt like I hit a decent bunker shot. That green slides away so much that I knew it was going to be quick and it just didn’t run out as much as I thought.
“Elvis (Smylie) gave me a decent look from the side and it somehow stayed pretty straight through the middle and I kind of blacked out when the putt went in.”
