How Michael Kim Proved Rickie Fowler's 'Play Better' Statement Right

'Play better' has been the advice from the haves to the have-nots on the PGA Tour for a while now.

Anyone who complained about a lack of opportunity into the Signature Events or was frustrated about the reduced number of full cards on offer from 2026 - the response often contained those two short words.

Rickie Fowler expressed the same simple message after he was overlooked for a sponsor exemption into the Arnold Palmer Invitational recently.

The six-time PGA Tour winner - with earnings of over $51 million throughout his career - had been given starts in the Genesis Invitational and Pebble Beach Pro-Am just before that, though, and was hardly complaining about a snub from the Palmer family.

The immensely-popular pro was simply making the point that if his results over recent weeks and months had been more encouraging, he wouldn't have had to worry about writing letters to organizers.

Midway through the Cognizant Classic, Fowler was asked about the Signature Event rejection, to which he replied: “At the end of the day, play better. It would be a lot easier just having played well last year and earned my way into these events.

"Been very fortunate and very thankful to Steve and John at Pebble and AT&T to get a spot there and Tiger and Genesis to get the one at Torrey. But it’s tough to try and get all of them. Being able to get some of them is great.

“Yeah, it is what it is. Like I said, at the end of the day, play well and that’ll take care of it. Obviously I’m bummed that I won’t be there next week. It’s a special event, and obviously I had a very special relationship with Mr Palmer. But we’ll see. We’ll see if we can get a trophy this week, and that would take care of that.”

As it turned out, Fowler finished the week T18th despite being in contention a couple of times - a result which continued his underwhelming record of having only managed one top-10 in a PGA Tour event since winning the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic (2024 Zozo Championship).

Apparently travelling in a different direction, form-wise, the living embodiment of the 'Play Better' mantra currently seems to be Michael Kim.

The American was floating around just outside the top-100 when Fowler was picking up his most recent PGA Tour title and remained there for a while before sliding backwards thanks to six missed cuts in eight starts (he WD from one and ended T24th in the other) between July and late-October last year.

But, for one reason or another, it all seemed to click for Kim at the Shriners Children's Open where he ended T5th. His subsequent three results in the FedEx Cup Fall series read: T30th (World Wide Technology Championship), T12th (Butterfield Bermuda Championship) and T11th (RSM Classic).

Having barely maintained his playing rights in 117th on the FedEx Cup points list, the 2018 John Deere Classic champion later overcame a rough first three appearances in 2025 to change his career prospects for the better.

First pointed out by the No Laying Up podcast on X, Kim booked his spot in the Genesis Invitational (Signature Event) through the Aon Swing 5 - largely thanks to a surprise T2nd finish at the WM Phoenix Open. He had missed the cut in two of his three starts during January and was T43rd in the other.

From there, Kim took his chance at the Genesis and recorded a highly respectable T13th before repeating that result the following week at the Mexico Open. Kim's fourth week of play in a row generated a T6th finish at the Cognizant Classic - ultimately booking his place in the Arnold Palmer Invitational via the Aon Next 10 initiative.

At Bay Hill, Kim performed brilliantly and secured $1 million - a little more than 10% of his career earnings in one fell swoop - via a fourth-place result. As it stands ahead of sixth start in a row, at The Players Championship, Kim is eighth on the FedEx Cup points list and right on track for more big pay days in the near future.

So for all those pros who might be unhappy at what they feel is a two-tier PGA Tour beginning to develop, Kim is living proof of the answer - play better.