ONE-TRACK MIND

Candie Kung, 17 years old and about to start her freshman year in college, has been to a movie theater only once.

Asked to name her favorite music groups and songs, she offers a puzzled look and there is an embarrassed pause.

“I don’t really know any of them,” Kung says softly.

“Livin’ La Vida Loca,” the chart-topping pop song by teen heartthrob Ricky Martin?

Kung shakes her head, shrugs her shoulders and delivers a blank stare.

“I don’t think I ever heard it,” she says.

Kung’s aversion to modern-day teenage pop culture is by choice. Quiet, shy and reserved, she has focused almost exclusively on pursuing success as a golfer since her family immigrated from Taiwan five years ago.

And so Kung has vaulted to the top of her own chart. She is the top-ranked girls’ player in the U.S. and has earned a scholarship to USC.

But has her success been worth the sacrifice?

When the question is raised, Kung retreats into the corner of the couch in the living room of her family’s Fountain Valley home. Clutching her tan-lined ankles, she ponders whether golf is still fun.

“No,” she finally says flatly. “I don’t like golf. I have to spend too much time practicing.”

Tough Schedule

Later, Kung will say that she was kidding about not having fun with golf. But there is little doubt that the hard work, the whirlwind travel schedule and the pressure of constant competition take their toll.

“I can see her saying that,” said Kung’s older brother Justin. “But whether it’s fun or not, she has enough motivation to keep going.”

Kung has won five national junior tournaments this year and is the leading candidate for the American Junior Golf Assn. Player of the Year, an award she covets.

The pursuit of that award continues this week at Green Spring Valley Hunt Club in Owings Mills, Md., where she shot 73-69 in stroke play to earn medalist honors at the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship. Match play begins today.

She was an AJGA All-American in 1997 and ’98. She was the 1998 Golfweek/Titleist Player of the Year. In 39 national-level junior tournaments she has 27 top-five finishes, including eight victories.

She also qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open this year, where she shot 73-73 and missed the cut by two strokes. Following the U.S. Girls’ Junior, she will play in the U.S. Women’s Amateur beginning Monday, the day after her 18th birthday.

Her motivation is more than simply making birdies and earning ranking points. Candie has become the focal point in a family that immigrated from Taiwan with no family and few friends in this country. They had only each other. Now they have Candie’s golf.

“It’s one of the best things that has happened to us,” said Justin, 23. “We’ve always been close, but now we’re even closer. We have a common topic to talk about.”

Her parents attend every tournament Candie plays and keep detailed statistics for every round. Her brother goes when he can get time off from engineering school at MIT.

The family has pieced together a scrapbook with newspaper clippings about her. The bigger ones are laminated on poster-sized boards. Dozens of trophies, medals and other memorabilia fill shelves and tables throughout the Kung home.

Yes, Candie said she was kidding about not liking golf, but the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice say that at least a part of her wonders what it means to be a teenage girl.

Her closet is filled with golf clothes rather than trendy styles. She has no music CDs or tapes, but keeps hundreds of tees in jars in her house. The family home has a pool in the backyard. Candie has been in it twice, rarely coming home from practice while it’s still hot enough to dive in.

She is not required to do any household chores. Father Sun Sen does the cooking. Mother Hsou Tao does the cleaning. Candie plays golf.

“With Candie, it’s about complete dedication to golf,” said Jeff Greenfield, Kung’s closest friend on the Fountain Valley High golf team. “It’s amazing how she continues like that. You’d think someone would get burned out practicing and playing so much, but she’s one of the few people that doesn’t.”

Changes in Store

Soon Kung will experience variety in her life. She will begin at USC this month and though her family plans to move to San Gabriel to remain close to her, the school requires all freshmen athletes to live on campus.

USC Coach Andrea Gaston, while admiring Candie’s dedication to golf and her family, thinks the change will be good.

“I’d like to see her grow as a person, not just as a golfer,” Gaston said. “We’d like to work on making her more well-rounded. At college she’s going to see other things beside golf and it’s important to have that balance even if you stay in golf. That’s what makes you the kind of person you are going to be.”

Gaston barely recognized Kung when Candie dropped by her campus office recently wearing blue jeans and sporting a new shorter hairdo. Gaston has rarely seen Kung without her wraparound sunglasses and golf shorts.

“She’s going to become one of the students,” Gaston said.

But the golf coach in Gaston quickly takes over as she recalls Kung’s intense dedication to practice.

“If I had my way, I’d ask that the other players become more like her than she like them,” Gaston said.

Normally, Candie hits 200-300 balls a day at the range, practices chipping and putting and all the other things that make her one of the most consistent players around.

And normally, her father is with her.

Sen Sun introduced Candie to golf after the family left Kaoshiung in southern Taiwan.

When she began showing an aptitude for the game, Sen Sun began to monitor her progress closely.

“I don’t think he’s ever been away from one shot she’s hit,” Justin Kung said. “As long as she’s at the course, he’s there too.”

But for Candie and Sen Sun, it isn’t about a father pushing his kid too hard. It’s about a father wanting to be there, to be part of his daughter’s life.

“With some people, the parents push them even though they don’t want to be pushed,” Greenfield said.

“But with Candie, she also wants to work hard, so it works. She and her dad have the same goal. Sometimes she gets a little tired, but they’re able to communicate about those things.”

On the Road

Candie spent the night in her own bed for a week recently. It was her longest stay at home in three months. During the week home, she qualified for the U.S. Women’s Amateur, went to watch friends play the Junior World Championships in La Jolla and attended a two-day orientation at USC.

“I’m only home for 10 days all summer,” Kung said. “Sometimes two days, three days, one day, three hours.”

Three hours?

“Yeah,” she said. “Three hours.”

The AJGA Girls’ Junior Championship ended May 31 in Tucson. Kung finished fourth, got on a plane to John Wayne Airport, went home for three hours, did some laundry, repacked and got on another plane to Ohio to play in the Hudson Junior Invitational, which she won.

On her recent week-long stay at home, Kung took a four-day break from golf and didn’t touch a club. It was the longest she had gone without practicing since she stared playing tournament golf in 1995.

“Sometimes I just want to take a day off because I’m too tired,” Kung said. “I just want to take a day off and relax. Then I [can] go out and be more fresh.”

With golf taking up so much of her time, Kung has found little time for friends.

“Half the kids on campus don’t even know her,” said Don Terranove, golf coach and math teacher at Fountain Valley High. “Most of the time she was by herself. I’m probably as close to her as anyone on campus and I don’t know a lot about her.”

Adjusting to a new country with different customs and a new language has been difficult for Candie. After five years, she still doesn’t know if she belongs.

“I’m still trying to get used to it,” she said. “Sometimes I still feel like I want to go back to Taiwan.”

She said she probably won’t, as long as her future in golf is so bright. For now, she continues to spend most of her free time with family.

That one movie she went to?

“I saw ‘Titanic,’ ” Kung said. “With my brother.

“I never go out with my friends. After practice I’m too tired. They used to call me for the first couple of years, but they gave up. Some of them understand, but some of them don’t.”

Greenfield has a theory about that.

“Golf,” he said, “is Candie’s best friend.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The File on Candie Kung

Birth date: Aug. 8, 1981

Birthplace: Kaoshiung, Taiwan

Residence: Fountain Valley

Home Courses: SeaCliff Country Club, David L. Baker Golf Course

Instructors: Victor Paez, Adam Schriber

National Ranking: 1

Career low round: 65

Woods: Driver, 3, 5, 7

Irons: 4-9

Wedges: PW, 53-degree SW, 60-degree LW

1999 Highlights: Winner, Doral Publinx Junior; winner, MCI Junior; winner, AJGA Woodlands Junior; winner, Hudson Junior Invitational; winner, AJGA Hargray Junior; qualifier, U.S. Women’s Open; qualifier, U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Other Career Highlights: winner, 1998 AJGA Woodlands Junior; winner, 1998 IIA Junior; winner, Women’s Western Junior Amateur; runner-up, 1997 U.S. Girls’ Junior.