Instead, the Scottish-born Australian golfer was finishing up a course of antibiotics for a chest and sinus infection that prevented him from picking up
a club since Sunday’s rainy end to the BMW Charity Classic in Greenville, South Carolina, where he beat Fabian Gomez with a par on the first hole of a playoff. “I haven’t even had a beer,” Sim said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. “I had a quiet dinner on Monday night with (housemate and former U.S. Amateur champion) Nick Flanagan and a few friends in Phoenix, but that’s it.” Last month, the 24-year-old Sim won the Stonebrae Classic in California before a playoff loss in the Athens Regional Foundation Classic. His win in the Greenville last weekend earned Sim $126,000, giving him a tour-best $367,417 in seven starts. Sim is $211,136 ahead of No. 2 Garth Mulroy, the largest gap in tour history, and is just one win away from an immediate promotion to the PGA Tour. “That would be the perfect scenario,” Sim said. “Picking up my third win would give me three or four months on the PGA Tour and a chance to get established for next year.” His immediate quest may have to wait — he’s still not 100 percent healthy and hasn’t decided whether to play in next week’s Nationwide event at Raleigh, North Carolina. And he pulled out of this Monday’s British Open qualifying tournament in Texas because he hadn’t practiced all week. Sim’s streak over three tournaments matches an identical one he achieved in 2005 when he won two of three starts along with a playoff loss on the U.S. amateur circuit.
His career, despite his recent success, has been anything but smooth.