EARLY this 12 months Grace Kim did one thing she’d by no means achieved earlier than – she took a break from golf.
She put away her golf golf equipment, packed her luggage, and took a three-week vacation in Korea together with her finest buddy. No fitness center, no follow, no competitors. Simply stress-free within the nation the place her mother and father have been born.
“It’s the primary time I’ve ever achieved something like that,” she says, and also you sense the surprise, and even perhaps a little bit guilt, on the boldness of her act. “However I had such a very good time.”
She says her sport could have suffered a little bit, although, and she or he blames rustiness for the considerably tardy begin to her marketing campaign on this 12 months’s LPGA Tour.
“Simply previous unhealthy habits coming again,” she says. “It’ll take a while however I’ll repair it on therange.”
Kim, born in Sydney and Australia’s finest beginner earlier than she turned skilled in 2021, is one in every of Australia’s brightest stars in world golf.
After a very good season on the Epson Tour in 2022, she gained conditional LPGA standing at Q Faculty on the finish of the 12 months.
Then, early in 2023, she shocked the world – and herself – by successful the Lotte Championship at Hoakalei Nation Membership in Hawaii. She birdied the primary playoff gap after rivals Yu Liu and Sung Yu-jin discovered the bunker with their approaches to the inexperienced.
Grace Kim did not mount a problem on the HSBC Girls’s World Championship nonetheless she appears to be like ahead to discovering type within the weeks and months forward.
“It was surreal,” Kim says. “My expectations have been very low and, actually, I hadn’t thought of successful. It was simply my third LPGA begin.”
Kim is older – she’s now 24 – and wiser, however nonetheless considers herself one thing of a rookie on the world stage.
She spends a whole lot of time in the USA, however doesn’t have a base there, selecting to as an alternative keep on the Australian Golf Home in Florida, when she will, and at Airbnb’s, which she books herself.
She relies upon so much on her mother and father, who she says are extremely supportive – and proud. More often than not, both her mum or dad will journey together with her.
However not each on the identical time. “I’ve a youthful brother and one in every of them must be at dwelling in Sydney with him,” Kim stated.
She credit her dad Kevin for getting her into golf, although she says she was a reluctant participant again then. “I didn’t actually prefer it,” she stated. “I’d a lot somewhat have been taking part in with mates or staying at dwelling.
“Dad wasn’t a lot of a golfer – a little bit of a hacker, actually – however he should have seen one thing in me. So I went together with it. Earlier than I knew it, I began to love the sport, and earlier than lengthy I liked it.
“It’s humorous wanting again,” Kim stated. “If it weren’t for my dad, my life can be very completely different. He believed in me earlier than I ever believed in myself.”
After competing within the Honda LPGA Thailand and the HSBC Girls’s World Championship in Singapore, Kim deliberate to return to Australia for the WPGA Championship at Sanctuary Cove in early March, however Cyclone Alfred had different concepts.
She is going to stick round for the Australian Girls’s Traditional at Coffs Harbour in mid-March.
You sense that Kim will seize an opportunity to return dwelling at any time – to play golf or simply loosen up.
“I do know I’m blessed to have a job the place I can journey the world with my mates, and revel in some great experiences,” she stated. “However there’s nothing like being dwelling and sleeping in my very own mattress.”
