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| Wednesday, July 16 |
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| Home away from home By Matt Oliveira SchoolSports.com | |||||||||
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Christina Kim spends nearly every night of the week with her second family. OK, so they aren't actually related, but they might as well be. "They" are the staff of the Santa Clara Golf and Tennis Club. Kim, a junior golf sensation at Oak Grove High (San Jose, Calif.), spends so much of her time on the driving range and on the course there that no one would be surprised if they started exchanging Christmas presents.
There's the head pro, Mike Paul. The manager's name is Bruce Kirschenmann, but since he has only been there for just more than three months, Kim couldn't remember his last name. Mike Basile is the club's superintendent. Terry Myers is the director of the club's junior program, of which Kim is an active participant. And Mike Kim, no relation, organizes the junior volunteers. But Christina Kim, who is ranked 27th in the American Junior Golf Association's most-recent amateur rankings, doesn't just know the names of the club's bigwigs. She is also pretty friendly with the head of the maintenance department, Robert Garfield. The people who work behind the desk and in the main office -- like Barry Johnson, Jill Hayishida and Linda Baek -- know who she is as well. Kim has even been known to fire a few good-natured shots at the fellas -- Alex, Joey, Jose, Brian or maybe James -- driving by on the carts and picking the balls up off the range. "That's my second home," says Kim, the defending Central Coast Section girls' golf champion, who also finished fifth at the CIF NorCal State Championship last fall. "I've been going there for the last couple of years now, and I know just about everyone. "They're always real friendly, and they ask me 'How's it going?' or How's (your) game?'" adds Kim. "They're always very encouraging to me. They're big supporters. They're big Christina fans. It makes me feel good." And despite the fact that her hands are callused and leathery from countless hours on the driving range, it definitely seems that all the time spent working on her game has paid off for the 5-foot-6 long-driving standout. Although there is no official girls' team at Oak Grove, Kim -- unfortunately for the other female golfers in the Bay area -- is allowed to participate in the girls' postseason tournaments each fall. She also competes as a member of the boys' team in the spring -- she was the top player on that squad last spring -- but she isn't eligible for postseason play. As a freshman in the fall of 1998, Kim -- who plays with custom-made Henry Griffiths clubs, Ping woods and a Ping (Anser 3) putter -- enjoyed a breakthrough season at the high school level. She won the Blossom Valley Athletic League championship, finished second in the CCS championship tournament and placed fourth at NorCal. "(Christina) can play with anybody I've seen," says Oak Grove boys' golf coach Paul Melendez, who has watched Kim go from a 4-handicap golfer to a scratch player during her high school career "She's much more dynamic than most of the other girls, and she's very strong.
"What makes her unique is the fact that she's got an incredible work ethic," he adds. "She's kind of famous for being out at the driving range until 9 o'clock at night hitting golf balls. She can see the end result, and she knows where she wants to be, whether it is as a freshman in college or competing after high school. She's working extremely hard to get there, and she takes great pride in the fact that she does put in more work than the other players. And it shows." It is equally apparent away from the high school game. This summer, Kim -- who has a powerful, compact swing, can drive the ball up to 280 yards and is working on improving her putting game -- captured three state titles and recorded a handful of strong national finishes as well. Kim, who also won the National Cowtown Classic and the National High School Open Championship this summer, took top honors at the PGA Junior State Championship. That finish qualified her for the PGA Junior National Championship, in West Palm Beach, Fla., where she finished fourth. She also finished first at the National Independent Insurance Agents Junior Classic State Finals and the California State Junior Amateur. "If I had to rate my game on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd have to give it about a 5.8762, to be precise," says Kim. "Seriously, if I had to say that one is an average golfer and 10 is a great player, I'm striving to go to 12 instead of just 10. I'm reaching for the stars. To be completely honest, I'm very proud of how far I've come."
Material from SchoolSports.com.Visit their web site at www.schoolsports.com | |
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