Chick-Fil-A 2003: Meltdown

It's not easy being a rookie. You have to do a lot of traveling, and the courses are all new. In college and amateur golf, you don't have to deal with pro-ams, sponsors, or much of the media. Nor do you have to do these things while trying to win a golf tournament against the best players in the world.

Christina Kim suspected that it would be tricky, so last year she and her father took a grand tour of all the golf courses on tour that they wanted to play in 2003. She made sure to play each and every one of them, even if it was winter and snowy there at the time she was in town. So even though she is a nineteen year old rookie (and she just turned 19 at that), and even if she is the youngest player on the LPGA, she still has a leg up over her rookie competition.

So far in 2003, her plan has held her in great stead. After a fantastic opening tournament, where she finished 4th and had a legitimate chance to win, she has cooled down. But still, her performances have been pretty darn good for a rookie. She has yet to miss a cut coming into this week, and has carved out a nice chunk of change for herself. She stood in the top 25 on the money list, and second on the rookie of the year points list. I doubt many thought she would be ahead of so many of her more heralded rookie opponents.

Christina after shooting a 62 at the Welch's tournament

Christina, like a lot of other players, had to deal with the weather problems plaguing the tournament Friday. She had an afternoon tee time, and did not actually start until 5:30 PM. Thus, she only got about half her round done before darkness put a stop to play. Nonetheless, it was a pretty good start, and by the time she was done with her first round she stood in 28th place with a 2 under par 70. The round included three birdies against just one bogey. If you were a Seoul Sister fan, however, you might not have noticed her on the leaderboard, for an inordinate number of Koreans had done well on day one. Soo Yun Kang was in a tie for the lead at 6 under, Grace Park and Young Kim were one shot back in third place, and Young-A Yang, Mi Hyun Kim and Hee-Won Han were all tied for tenth. Still, she had done what you need to do in a three day tournament: put yourself in position to make a move on Saturday.

And though she would play one and a half rounds on Saturday, she certainly did make that move, shooting one of the best rounds of her young career. After finishing her first round, she only had a short rest before starting her second on the tenth hole. And a bunch of pars were met with a bogey on 15. Finally she notched her first birdie on the par 5 18th hole to go back to 2 under for the event. At this point she barely registered as a blip on the leaderboard.

But then she kicked it into another gear, with birdies on 2, 3 and 4 and another on 6. She vaulted up the leaderboard, and another birdie on 8, followed by a near miss on 9, allowed her to finish her marathon day with a 5 under 67. She had moved from pretender to contender in one day, and stood in a tie for fourth at 7 under. However, Karrie Webb was at that point at 11 under, and it looked for all the world like Christina had little chance of taking the trophy.