Christina Kim back on top after her struggle
Christina Kim grew up in San Jose, but she didn’t follow baseball as a kid and didn’t become a Giants fan until last year. Now she has the MLB package on her phone and carries a good- natured obsession with Buster Posey.
Kim also quickly picked up on the notion of storied rivalries. Witness the way she described her experience at Tuesday night’s Dodgers- Giants game, for which she landed tickets near the visitors’ dugout.
“I saw Don Mattingly and I wanted to scream so many profanities,” Kim joked ( sort of ). “But there was an 18month- old sitting next to me. I’m learning restraint.”
Kim, 31, counts as one of the most personable players in women’s golf. Most of her friendly banter is not exactly suitable for publication, but she was predictably gregarious throughout Wednesday’s proam in advance of this week’s tournament at Lake Merced.
One big selling point of the LPGA Tour is the idea of fans/ spectators connecting with players. The players are more accessible than their PGA Tour counterparts, usually more receptive to signing autographs and giving the public some insight into who they are.
Kim took this concept a step further in July 2012 ( unintentionally, because her real motive was self- therapy), when she wrote on her blog about her battle with depression. Golf Digest spread the story to a larger audience in December 2012, under the headline “Tears of a Clown,” and soon Kim came to represent much more than a charismatic, colorfully dressed golfer.
“I went through some dark times a few years ago,” she said.
More than two years after her poignant story went public, Kim remains struck by the response. She heard from military members struggling with post- traumatic stress disorder in the wake of fighting overseas. One golf- company executive told Kim about his son’s long duel with depression, and found solace talking to her.
Another LPGA player approached Kim and shared her story, a similar tale of persistent darkness and suicidal thoughts. The player took inspiration from Kim, and the two have since built a strong friendship.
Kim’s troubles began with a back injury in 2010, which sent her game into an extended funk. She became increasingly frustrated and depressed about her career, to the point where she occasionally contemplated crashing her car on purpose.
Then, at a Ladies European Tour event in Spain in April 2011, she stood on a secondfloor terrace staring down at the Mediterranean. She thought the water might offer the solitude she craved. Kim lingered for nearly 15 minutes before deciding she couldn’t do it.
“We’re all given a very special gift, to have life,” she said this week. “It shames me to think I ever thought about taking my own. But it’s something I’m grateful I went through, because now I feel like I’m more compassionate.”
Beneath the off- color jokes, then, lurks a deeply introspective person. Kim turned 30 last year, a landmark she came to see as a turning point — for entering the second act of her life, not the launching pad of another personal crisis.
She no longer lives her life thinking she “knows everything,” and she insisted she’s more fulfilled no matter the state of her career. It helps that she’s in a long- term relationship; her boyfriend of nearly five years, Duncan French, works as Michelle Wie’s caddie.
Kim’s game is progressing, too. She burst onto the LPGA scene more than a decade ago, winning one tournament at age 20 and another at 21. Expectations soared, but then Kim disappeared from the winner’s circle.
Finally, in November — after more than nine years without a victory — she won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico City. Kim’s emotions poured out in an exuberant celebration.
“Now she knows she can win,” caddie T. J. Jones said. “She will win again, no doubt about it. … She’s the most upbeat person. She knows she has to stay upbeat, and she does.”
One source of Kim’s happiness is the Giants, slow start and all. She joined Wie, Juli Inkster and Paula Creamer in an LPGA promotion at AT& T Park before last year’s Lake Merced tournament, planting the seeds for her allegiance. Now she’s hooked.
Mattingly and his Dodgers are hereby warned.
“It shames me to think I ever thought about taking my ( life). But it’s something I’m grateful I went through, because now I feel like I’m more compassionate.” Christina Kim, on her struggle with depression