PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Career grinder Chan Kim opened PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry on Thursday with a 6-under 64 on the Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass, taking the first-round lead as he aims to reclaim full PGA TOUR status.

Kim, 35, earned his card through the Korn Ferry Tour in 2023 and held onto it with a 94th-place finish in the 2024 FedExCup standings. Early this year, he appeared ready to cement himself on TOUR, posting his first career top-five at the Valero Texas Open and adding a T7 the following week at the Corales Puntacana Championship. Then came a stunning slide of 11 missed cuts in 14 starts.

His game unraveled just as he seemed to be settling in at golf’s highest level, with swing troubles stunting his play. Even when he played well enough to lead early in the ISCO Championship, his thoughts snapped back to the minutiae of technique.

“The first two rounds obviously went really well and then the third and fourth rounds I started getting back into thinking about my golf swing,” he said. “I said, you know what, I’m just going to go out, hurry up and play some golf, get back in and call the wife (who was pregnant at the time), see how the baby’s doing.”

Off the course, life had become far more complicated as the season progressed into the fall. Kim’s first child, daughter Jenna, was born during the World Wide Technology Championship, a moment he missed, and she was hospitalized for a month immediately due to complications.

“I had a pretty rough end of the season … It’s weird, we had our first child, we had a daughter Friday of the (World Wide Technology Championship),” Kim said. “I wasn’t able to be there, but I got on a flight Saturday, flew in, and she was in the hospital for a month.”

Doctors warned Jenna's situation was potentially dire.

“Doctors didn’t know if she was going to survive, which in turn just put us under a lot of stress,” he said. “I was so focused on that that nothing else really mattered at that point.”

On the course, his mechanics slipped as his mind drifted.

“For some reason, I was kind of hitting like these wipe cuts and I thought it was swing related, so I started working on my swing,” he said. “That just never really left. I just kept tweaking it, tweaking it, tweaking it. … At that point you’re playing golf swing, not golf.”

It was a large roadblock in the winding golf journey Kim had already traveled.

After turning pro in 2010, he collected eight international wins, including a dominant run on the Japan Golf Tour highlighted by three victories in 2017. He earned entry into 13 major championships through the Japanese pathway, finishing T11 in 2017 at The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. After a year sidelined with a back injury, he surged again with six top-three finishes in 2019, won the Japan Open Golf Championship and finished No. 1 in the 2020-21 Japan Tour standings.

In 2022, he shifted focus to a path toward the PGA TOUR, finishing second at Q-School Final Stage.

“Yeah, in ‘22 I think I finished second at Q-School,” he said. “I’ve got a very good track record at Q-Schools for some reason. I made it through Canadian Q-School, Asian Tour Q-School, Japan Tour Q-School twice, and got Challenge Tour status off European Tour Q-School. So I’ve played about every single one.”

Now, his life has steadied, as he looks to finish strong in hopefully the last of many Q-Schools in his career.

“She’s finally home,” Kim said of Jenna after his round that placed him atop the early leaderboard. “She got home yesterday.”

With two made cuts to close the FedExCup Fall and renewed clarity, Kim appears ready to rediscover the form he carried early in 2025. If he stays inside the top five through the weekend, he will return to the PGA TOUR this time with a clear mind and a healthy daughter waiting at home.

After Thursday’s play, here’s how the field began their week:

Projected TOUR cards

The top five after 72 holes will earn full status for the 2026 PGA TOUR season. Through 18 holes, here’s who could earn a TOUR card.

1. Chan Kim (6-under) – Along with the news of baby Jenna coming home from the hospital, the South Korean switched into a new driver and putter for the first round of PGA TOUR Q-School.

2. Greyson Sigg (5-under) – Having spent four seasons on TOUR accumulating 129 starts, the Georgia Bulldog dropped to 136th in the FedExCup Fall this year and is playing for his full-time status.

T3. Michael Feagles (4-under) – The University of Illinois Fighting Illini alum carded five birdies and a bogey at Sawgrass Country Club. He once shot 59 on the Korn Ferry Tour at the BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by TD SYNNEX.

T3. Luke Gutschewski (4-under) – He graduated this summer from Iowa State and is looking to follow in his father’s (Scott Gutschewski) footsteps by making it to the PGA TOUR.

T3. A.J. Ewart (4-under) – After missing out on the top 10 of the PGA TOUR Americas Points List this season, Ewart battled through Second Stage at Tucson, Arizona, to earn status for the Korn Ferry Tour at Final Stage.

Korn Ferry Tour bubble

The next 40 finishers and ties will earn Korn Ferry Tour membership for the 2026 season, with the first 25 finishers and ties being subject to the third reshuffle (occurs after 14th event), and any remaining finishers being subject to the second reshuffle (occurs after 10th event)

Through Round 1, 63 players are at 1-under 69 or better, making that the current cutoff for Korn Ferry Tour status. Among the notable names of the group:

T6. Hayden Springer (3-under) – Having already earned a TOUR card through PGA TOUR Q-School in 2023 with a top-five finish, Springer started the 2025 season with his only top-10 of the year at the Farmers Insurance Open before dropping to 131st in the FedExCup Fall rankings.

T15. Kyle Westmoreland (2-under) – The former active-duty Air Force Captain has already secured Korn Ferry Status for the 2026 season through the season-long points list and is positioned nicely after a first-round 68 at Sawgrass Country Club

T34. Camilo Villegas (1-under) – The five-time PGA TOUR winner, who will have past champions status on the PGA TOUR next season, battled back from a double-bogey 5 at the par-3 15th (his sixth hole) to shoot under par.

T34. Alejandro Tosti (1-under) – The Argentinian finished third on the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour Points List to earn his card and then the following season finished top-five at Q-School to continue playing on the PGA TOUR.

T34. Zac Blair (1-under) – A spirited fall earned Blair limited starts on the PGA TOUR next season as he climbed into the top-150 of the FedExCup Fall, but the BYU star is positioned just inside the top-40 in Ponte Vedra Beach.

Notables

T64. Luke List (even)– Two-time TOUR winner with 313 career starts finds himself on the outside looking in to begin what is likely an unsavory trip to Q-School after finishing 157th in the FedExCup.

T64. Sam Ryder (even) –Ryder returns to the friendly confines of Northeast. Florida to grind for status after just slipping beyond the threshold to 108th in the FedExCup. Made 19 of 28 cuts in 2025 but never collected a top ten.

T89. Cameron Champ (1-over) – The three-time TOUR winner already played the 2025 season with limited status, competition in just 16 events, and missing eight cuts. After a 132nd-place finish in the standings, he needs a major surge to head back to the TOUR full-time.

T110. Lanto Griffin (2-over) – Last year’s Q-School Final Stage medalist returns this year on the wrong foot, starting out with a 2-over 71 at Sawgrass Country Club.

T127. Harry Higgs (3-over)– Higgs returns to Q-School after being inches away from securing a two-year winner’s exemption at the OneFlight Myrtle Beach Classic. Instead, he fell victim to a Ryan Fox chip-in from off the green in a playoff and is now off to a poor start in his 2025 Q-School endeavor.

T135. Taylor Moore (4-over)– It seems like yesterday that Moore was hoisting the trophy at the 2023 Valspar Championship after a backdoor win over Jordan Spieth and Adam Schenk. After his winner’s exemption expired, it will take a monumental effort to battle back into contention for a TOUR card this week.

PGATOUR.COM's Alistair Cameron contributed to this report.