Kim calmly captures SBS title
 |
Golf photo gallery |
| • | She made big splash on LPGA |
| • | Korean drama plays out well on SBS |
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
| |||
 |
|
||
| |||
|
|
||
KAHUKU — Joo Mi Kim won the SBS Open at Turtle Bay yesterday with a resolve hidden by her perpetual grin and youthful resume, and a golf game that never wilted in the heat of a searing start to the LPGA season.
Infinite hours of practice and six hours of clutch golf led to one spectacular swing on the second playoff hole. From 80 yards out, Kim arced her approach shot to within a foot of the pin. After Soo Young Moon missed her birdie putt from 20 feet, Kim buried the winner as she had so many pressure putts earlier in the day.
It was good for $150,000 and a three-year exemption on the tour she dedicated herself to playing as a child in Seoul — along with the 31 other South Koreans now on the tour.
"I am very happy, excited," Kim said through an interpreter. "Seems like I am dreaming."
Kim and Moon — also 21, from South Korea and searching for her first LPGA victory — birdied the first playoff hole to eliminate Lorena Ochoa, who had closed with a final-round 67 that caught the Koreans at 10-under-par 206.
The two-hole playoff (both played on No. 18) concluded a final round fraught with possibilities. Finally, on a muggy Kona day at Turtle Bay's Palmer Course, it came down to three:
"It's OK," said Moon, who speaks fluent English. "Next time I can (win). This is a very good chance, but I can do better next time. And I can do it step by step. I have confidence. I can do better."
"I was very confident about my (playoff) putt," Ochoa said. "We saw the break before and it was just uphill left-to-right a little bit. I was feeling really good, and just stroked it a little bit too easy — too soft of a stroke."
She made every "tester" she saw yesterday, draining eight par putts of at least 3 feet — including a comebacker on the last hole of regulation — before blitzing the playoff holes.
"I did not think about winning today," said Kim, who won three times in Korea before qualifying for the LPGA last year. "I tried to play hole-by-hole and then I tried to keep my status on the leaderboard.
"All I thought about on 18 was trying to keep at 10-under par. I was very nervous on 18. After I finished the 18th hole I was going for the playoff and I wasn't very nervous at all. The reason I think I won was I was very calm."
Other-worldly calm. Her two birdies on the playoff holes were as many as she had the rest of the day, but Kim never gave this tournament a chance to get away.
After Moon, who has known Kim since junior golf, stroked in a birdie from 21 feet on the first playoff hole, Kim slammed hers home from 12, raising her fist and flashing her biggest smile.
When Kim hit her sand wedge perfect the next time around, she said she knew the ball would be close the moment it touched down.
She grinned again, looked at caddie Jay Jang, and slapped his hand. The two were thrown together Thursday morning when Kim's regular caddie had to fly home for the birth of his child. Jang, who plays on the men's Korean tour, works for Kim's coach (Mike Bender) and was here only to keep an eye on Kim's swing.
It looked awfully good.
"I just gave her some confidence," Jang said. "Just told her 'Your swing is perfect, perfect.' I think she believed it and started hitting it better."
Kim had but one bogey in closing with a 71, and just three all week. Her two birdies yesterday kept anyone from passing her. But it was Kim's astonishing composure in the final hours of the LPGA's first 2006 event that was the difference.
"Before the playoff she really had pressure on her," Jang said. "She had to make so many 4-foot putts and she made all of them. After that, in the playoff, she didn't feel any pressure. Before the playoff was the maximum pressure she had."
Until Christina Kim sprayed two bottles of champagne all over Kim, then joined three other players in trying to drag her into the lake fronting the final hole. Kim took one look at all the rocks and squirmed free. She eventually jumped in, after Jang took a test dive. "All of the players were pushing me in," Kim said, "so I volunteered to go in."
Her final act of grace under pressure on a phenomenal day. NOTES
Nearly all these players, and Michelle Wie, will be in the inaugural Fields Open in Hawai'i. It starts Thursday at Ko Olina Golf Club. There is a free junior clinic Tuesday, at 4 p.m., with Hall of Famer Juli Inkster and teenagers Paula Creamer and Morgan Pressel. The Pro-Am is Wednesday.
Pressel closed with a 70 yesterday and tied for fifth. She won $33,952 in her professional debut. Inkster tied for eighth and Creamer shared 13th. Ai Miyazato came in 48th in her first tournament as a member of the LPGA.
The front nine of Turtle Bay's Palmer Course played under par for the first time yesterday at 35.741. Friday, when exactly half the field of 130 broke par, the back nine played under par (35.808) as did the course (71.886). Yesterday's average score was 72.556, and the total for the week was 72.680.
Kim apologized for her lack of English in the television post-match interview saying through an interpreter, "If I win next time, I'll speak English."
Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.
