I.Ok. Kim is 36 years previous. She picked up golf at age 9. She has been competing professionally for 18 years.
All golf numbers, Kim says.
So, what higher stage for her closing 18 holes than the place the place every double inexperienced provides as much as 18?
“I’ve been ready for this second when that day would come, and it got here right this moment,” Kim stated after wrapping up a solo end of 81st (18 backwards) on Sunday on the AIG Girls’s Open, which Kim revealed was her final LPGA occasion.
“I simply knew when it’s time that I’d really feel it, and I’ve been pondering it for the final two years. … Every thing retains coming 18, and I used to be like, it have to be it.”
Kim, who hit the primary shot of this championship on Thursday morning at St. Andrews’ Previous Course, didn’t absolutely make up her thoughts till Saturday evening. She dialed her household and some buddies, her instructors as effectively, and broke the information. It was too late to name everybody, although.
“They actually tried to speak me out of it,” Kim stated.
It didn’t work. Kim sped throughout the famed Swilcan Bridge on Sunday afternoon, earlier than the leaders even teed off, not stopping for her second like so many earlier than her, together with Catriona Matthew, who missed the minimize on Friday night in her closing Girls’s Open.
Kim polished off a 3-over 75 with par, signed her card after which knowledgeable outgoing R&A chief Martin Slumbers that she was accomplished.
A seven-time LPGA winner, Kim ends her profession with 16 top-10s in majors, together with her lone main triumph on the 2017 Girls’s Open at close by Kingsbarns, which got here 5 years after she missed a 14-inch putt to win what’s now the Chevron Championship.
“He stated, ‘You caught me shock,’” Kim stated of Slumbers, whom she known as a task mannequin.
“I used to be fairly emotional when he introduced his retirement. I used to be nonetheless in denial, I informed him. He’s been very variety and beneficiant to me for the reason that first time that I performed with him after I gained the Kingsbarns.”
When Kim informed fellow veteran Yani Tseng, Tseng cried uncontrollably.
“And I cried along with her,” Kim stated. “Simply you by no means know when it’s going to finish. Not simply golf and relationship and issues. We’re not right here eternally. I really feel like golf is educating me that slightly bit sooner.”
Kim isn’t certain what’s subsequent. She has many pursuits, she says. She’ll take solutions, too. However she is bound she’s making the appropriate resolution.
“I’m most happy with the onerous work that I’ve put into,” Kim stated. “I wasn’t most proficient or most gifted, however I liked the sport. I used to be prepared to journey wherever to play golf and be taught the sport, and I needed to thank all the women right here. I’ve realized a lot from them. So, it’s simply, I feel their relationship…”
She started to choke up, tears in her eyes.
“Thanks a lot,” she continued. “Thanks all.”
