Kim Is Just Part of Youth Movement

Like point guards and pop stars, Southern California golfers are achieving prominence at progressively younger ages.

Sihwan Kim turned 15 this fall and already the 6-foot, 220-pound freshman from La Mirada can drive the ball 290 yards -- and that’s on a bad swing off the toe of his driver.

Kim won the boys’ division of the L.A. Junior City Championship Invitational on April 5 by shooting a seven-under-par 209 over three rounds. Runner-up Bi O Kim (no relation), who shot 210, is an eighth-grader from Tustin.

Sihwan Kim’s tournament victory made him the top-ranked golfer in the nation for his age, according to the National Junior Golf Scoreboard. The position was formerly held by freshman Matt Pierce of San Juan Capistrano St. Margaret’s. Pierce, now ranked No. 2, boasted an 18-hole, three-under-par 69 scoring average before he entered high school.

“Kids are getting better at a much younger age,” said Coach Dennis McReynolds, whose Cerritos team, ranked No. 3 by The Times, has only two seniors. “This is a real testament to youth golf programs across the country and especially in Southern California. It’s not a new trend, it’s just a more solid trend. It’s more consistent.”

Cerritos Gahr Coach Steve Orr agrees. His second-ranked Gladiators have four sophomores, all of whom started as freshmen on a team that won the Southern Section’s Central Division championship.

“It used to be you’d have one, maybe two freshmen [on varsity] and that was it,” Orr said. “But more kids are getting into golf sooner. They are definitely coming to me as freshmen and already have their game with them. I don’t think there’s a varsity sport around where you can count on so many freshmen.”

The numbers are there to support the notion, and not just on the scorecards. The American Junior Golf Assn., which hosts national tournaments for high school players throughout the summer, has been receiving more applicants with each passing year; and now for the first time this summer will start accepting players as young as 12.

“Our enrollment has never been higher,” AJGA Player Services representative Lilly Steffey said. “We had to add the special division just to accommodate [the growth]. I think Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie have really brought youth golf’s popularity up.”

But while Woods and Wie have inspired many, they were not a factor for Kim when he picked up a club for the first time six years ago.

“I wasn’t interested in having those type of role models,” Kim said. “My parents were playing golf a little bit and they wanted me to have a bit of an interest. But I didn’t like it very much because I thought it was boring.”

But that would change. It happened right before his family emigrated from South Korea three years ago.

“After I broke 80, right before we moved, I felt really excited and I started to really like [golf] more,” Kim said. “Then I wanted to come to the United States and have good practice facilities because in Korea, you have to pay $200 to play on really [poor] courses and here it’s much cheaper.”

Kim and his La Mirada teammates play and practice for free at the Candlewood Country Club in Whittier because senior captain Ricky Costello’s father is a member as well as the club’s champion.

Kim’s golf clubs were also given to him, gratis, from Titleist -- a stipulation made legal by the USGA two years ago -- after he won the Nike Golf Junior All Star Series Championships in 2003.

“The game is all mental,” said La Mirada senior Daniel Im, The Times’ golfer of the year in 2003. “When you’re young, there’s no distractions. There’s no stress [in your life] and you can just concentrate on golf.

“But when you get older, you drive and learn more and there’s so many other things you can do other than golf. You can get distracted from the game.”

Kim’s physical prowess suggests, however, that he is of a new breed of golfer.

“Golfers are athletes now,” said Candlewood golf pro Mark Miller, 35. “The equipment is better, the swings are better, they’re better conditioned, the weight room is more a part of a practice session and they’re getting stronger. It just wasn’t like that in my day, 10 to 15 years ago.”

While Kim is not the first freshman to crack the starting lineup for La Mirada, a feat first accomplished by Im, he has blazed a trail for the Matadores in other ways.

“We usually make the freshmen carry the bags,” Coach Jim Erickson said. “But we haven’t really picked on Sihwan too much.”