Chan Kim's Hawaiian roots: From midnight range sessions to $1 rounds

Editor's note: This article was originally posted during the Sony Open in Hawaii, with Chan Kim teeing up as a PGA TOUR first-year member in Honolulu where he grew up. Kim shot an opening round 6-under 66 to share the lead at the Corales Puntacana Championship.

HONOLULU – Chan Kim can’t sleep.

It’s 2004 and golf-crazed Kim, 14, is sitting in bed flipping through Golf Digest magazine, seeking lessons from the pros. Kim, who started playing at age 12, has quickly grown enamored with the game. An instructional tip catches his eye – he wakes up his mom Kyung Ok Kim and asks for a ride to Ala Wai Golf Center, an 18-hole municipal course with a lighted driving range. It’s 11 p.m., but he needs to try out the tip. Sometimes she says no (it’s late; he has school the next day), but this time she says yes, and he burns the midnight oil. In these times, the range is open until 2 a.m.

This anecdote plays out dozens of times as Kim progresses from a beginner level with an uncontrollable slice to one of Hawaii’s top junior players – first under the tutelage of area teaching pro Les Uyehara, who lives four blocks from Ala Wai, and later David Ishii, the 1990 Sony Open in Hawaii winner. The family moved to Arizona midway through Kim’s junior year of high school, but Honolulu is forever his hometown, where his defining traits – including golf addiction – were formed.

Fast forward to Tuesday afternoon, and 33-year-old Kim returns to Ala Wai. He has goosebumps. He’s two days from making his first start as a PGA TOUR member at the Sony Open in Hawaii, contested at Waialae Country Club, just three miles from Ala Wai.

Kim’s globetrotting career has included eight Japan Golf Tour wins – victory prizes range from cars to honeydew melons – and he earned his first PGA TOUR card via the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour. He will debut as a TOUR member in his hometown, 14 years after turning pro. It’s a story that, as they say, writes itself.

Kim arrives at Ala Wai minutes after concluding a press conference at Waialae, fielding questions from local reporters, one of which covered him as a star high school golfer. He’s here to return to his roots and look back before looking forward. Kim, 6-foot-2 with sharp black hair and an easy smile, strolls through the open-air foyer that separates the parking lot from the course, recalling Saturdays he’d arrive at 4:30 a.m., hoping that an early tee time would open so that he could squeeze in 36 holes. The junior program offered a 20-play punch card for $20. It was pink, he remembers. There’d be a backup on the par-5 third tee, sometimes as many as four groups, and he’d find a shady spot under a tree for a snack. He strolls down the range – squares of hitting mats in stations divided by plywood – and points to stalls 38-40. That’s where his high school team would practice; the team consisted of just three boys and a girl. His high school assistant coach comes over to say hello (unplanned). Uyehara is here (planned), reminiscing how Kim reworked his grip in his early teenage years to mitigate his slice.

Kim’s pre-tournament media schedule allotted 30 minutes here, but he stays for more than two hours, even as light rain starts to fall. The range is packed at twilight, including junior golfers and retirees. Some of each come over to say hello. He tells a kid in a Stanford hat that a pretty good TOUR pro went to school there (Tiger Woods). He banters with an Ala Wai staffer about one hole’s particularly vexing water hazard, which submarined Kim’s score on more than one occasion. He hits a few shots on the range under the watchful eye of Uyehara – who has taught golf for 50 years and is perhaps no longer Kim’s coach in technicality, but forever in spirit. Kim’s TOUR card is for everyone who has encompassed the journey, he says with a tone that conveys tender appreciation.

Ala Wai is where the memories flow. It’s the best version of a mirrorball, projecting Hawaii’s Aloha spirit (mutual regard and affection) across the communal, all-ages golf center – which has progressed into a lively hub for First Tee Hawaii.

Through the recollections and interactions, it becomes crystal clear. Ala Wai shaped Kim, and his story can shape the attitudes of the next generation of Hawaiian golfers honing their games on these grounds.

“He has the disposition and very good self-control,” Uyehara told the Honolulu Advertiser in 2006. “His attitude was golf seven days a week. If he wasn’t playing, he was practicing. I predict great success for him.”

Uyehara carries a scrapbook that includes a clipping with the article that features this quote. The coach laughs now that he must be a prophet.

Kim has played professional golf for 14 years, mainly on the Japan Golf Tour. He thrived on that circuit, winning eight times and finishing No. 1 on the 2020-21 standings. There’s a longtime synergy between Hawaiian and Japanese golf. Ishii, a 14-time Japan Golf Tour winner, had mentioned Japan as a potential pathway back when Kim was in high school. Kim listened to his second instructor and found success. Ishii, who played the PGA of Japan Seniors Tour in the 2010s, remembers word of Kim’s great talent spreading across the senior circuit. Ishii listened with pride. One week, the two circuits played in the same region, and Kim made the hour-long drive to say hello and catch up. Kim doesn’t forget his roots.

Kim gave Korn Ferry Tour Q-School another try in 2022, and he finished runner-up at Final Stage to earn guaranteed starts. The opportunity didn’t pass him by, as he finished No. 2 on the season-long standings (the top 30 earned TOUR cards) in a season that included back-to-back wins in August. After winning the Magnit Championship in New Jersey by three shots, he became the circuit’s first bogey-free 72-hole winner at the Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron. Kim clinched his TOUR card with that second title; the news was covered extensively in Hawaii. Uyehara cut out and saved a newspaper clipping, which he keeps in the scrapbook.

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing. Kim has missed several times at Q-School, and he was sidelined for all of 2018 due to a back injury, occupying his time with golf highlights on YouTube – and yes, instructional tips. He saw several doctors and specialists; one recommended to the right-handed Kim that he hit shots left-handed for stabilization (he maintains the practice to this day).

Through it all, the game’s authentic joy endured. It was cultivated at Ala Wai.

“From age 12 onward he insisted playing golf, every day, 365 days a year instead of other sports,” said his mom Kyung Ok. “After he got some lessons, we realized that he had something special … Chan went through a lot of hardships to get here, constant practicing. It's the culmination of a lot of hard work.”

It started in an unlikely fashion. Kim was born in South Korea and moved to Honolulu with his parents at age 3, as his dad started a tourism business. His favorite sport in elementary school was probably soccer – most of his friends played – and he earned a red belt in taekwondo. He dabbled in music as well, playing the tenor saxophone.

Kim’s parents played golf and he enjoyed being around the course, but he didn’t make a swing until age 12. When he did, he was hooked. He wasn’t a prodigy – he failed to qualify for Oahu Junior Golf Association events in his first go-round, and his memories from early golf swings include “a lot of shanks” – but nobody would outwork him.

He stopped playing soccer; it took away from golf. He enjoyed skateboarding to school but shelved the board, not wanting to risk injury. After school ended at 2:30 p.m., he’d be at the Ala Wai range by 3:30 p.m., hit balls, play nine holes,and head back to the range at sunset. The staff gave him three buckets of balls for the price of one.

After a year and a half, he broke par for the first time. He won his first event just before age 15. As a high school sophomore at age 16, he shared the Oahu Interscholastic Association title with a freshman named Tadd Fujikawa, three months after teaming with Fujikawa to win the HPLGA Four-Ball Championship against adult competition. (The next spring, Fujikawa finished 20th at the Sony Open in Hawaii).

Kim quickly became addicted to the feeling of winning. Winning meant getting better and getting better meant winning. Hence the midnight range sessions at Ala Wai.

“You hit that one good shot and end up chasing that feeling for a long time,” Kim said. “This game is the only time you can feel every emotion humanly possible in four hours. It’s a great time.”

An introspective statement followed by quick levity, that’s Kim in a nutshell. He takes his game seriously but enjoys the lighter side of life. After completing the Korn Ferry Tour’s Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation last September, he hung around with libation in hand to congratulate winner Grayson Murray. After the final round of the Korn Ferry Tour’s season finale, he gleefully traded the clubs for the mic to interview his fellow graduates. The ethos dates to childhood – when describing the island tours of the family business, he recalled doing the electric slide and his eagerness to revisit the retro dance upon returning to Hawaii. He fondly remembers “grinding out Donkey Kong” on the Super Nintendo game console as a kid, and his fascination with video gaming remains to this day – he’s an avid Call of Duty player (Xander Schauffele is a frequent online partner). His bucket list includes meeting elite Call of Duty streamers.

His secret sauce is perhaps synthesizing life’s subtle joys with an unwavering work ethic, an enduring trait.

Kim’s parents were so supportive of his golf dream that they moved to Arizona so that he could complete high school in the most competitive environment possible. Teammates at Hamilton High School outside Phoenix included former TOUR pro Andrew Yun. After two years at Arizona State, he turned pro – figuring he could return to complete his degree if pro golf didn’t pan out. He found a home on the Japan Golf Tour for several years, faring well enough to earn spots in several World Golf Championships and major championships, including a T11 at the 2017 Open Championship. After the back injury sidelined him for a year, he recorded six top-three finishes in 2019, including a victory at the Japan Open Golf Championship. He was back. In fall 2022, he decided to play the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament, intended to build a pathway to the PGA TOUR. He finished second at Final Stage of Q-School and was off to the races.

Kim made his first Korn Ferry Tour start at the 2010 Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank and was paired with Tony Finau. He was paired alongside Xander Schauffele for the latter’s pro debut at the 2015 ISPS Handa Global Cup. Both times, his playing partner’s dad took a liking and has stayed in touch. He visited with Kelepi Finau at this year’s Utah Championship; Kelepi’s message: “You’ve got the game.” He received a text from Stefan Schauffele after his back-to-back Korn Ferry Tour victories last summer. They’ve told him to “hurry up and get out here and play on the PGA TOUR.”

Kim has obliged.

“It’s almost like everybody else believed in me,” Kim said, “and it took me a while to get to that point when I was really starting to believe in myself.”

That belief permeates the Ala Wai grounds, for Kim and Hawaiian golfers to come.

Stephanie Royer contributed reporting