![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
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The 25-year-old was a junior star and awesome amateur, but her path to professionalism was aided by Aussie legend Karrie Webb, whose scholarship she was awarded four times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always said (that) Karrie\u2019s my biggest inspiration,\u201d Kim told foxsports.com.au in a chat last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that she\u2019s been able to give back (and) be so humble about giving back, even through her accolade and her achievements, is very inspiring. And that\u2019s obviously what I\u2019m starting to do now. I think it\u2019s a pretty cool step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sydneysider, a stunning winner of the Evian Championship in France last year, believes being able to pass on some advice and help out Aussie juniors through a Ripper GC initiative could lead to even more success for Australian golfers.<\/p>\n
By helping the Aussie juniors Kim, who will feature in the year\u2019s second major at the Riviera Country Club this weekend, believes she is helping herself while noting that a distraction from the rigours of life on the road is a good thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do love kids and I think they just bring in such a youthful energy, and that probably inspires me as well, to just have fun with the game. It\u2019s more so nice for my golf (because) it\u2019s not all that serious,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think sometimes it\u2019s hard because it is now my job, so I could be taking it a bit too seriously, and then that affects my golf in a not so good way, so it\u2019s a real good reminder to just have fun with it and enjoy it along the way, especially where we get to travel the world and spend my week with some of the players (who are my) friends first. So I guess, yeah, they\u2019re really good reminder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Major winner Grace Kim, pictured after her win in the Evian Championship last July in France, was back in Australia recently passing on her advice to the nation\u2019s best junior talent.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Kim, who was only the second Australian woman to play the famous Augusta course when competing in the National Women\u2019s Amateur, turned professional in late 2021 and this week\u2019s US Open will mark her 17th major appearance.<\/p>\n
Aside from the stunner in France, where she eagled the 18th to force a play-off against the exceptional Jeeno Thitkul – she jokes that she is responsible for at least half the hits on videos of her stunning shot – her best finish in a major came when 13th in the US Open three years ago. <\/p>\n
The success in France brought with a five year exemption into the five majors featuring on the women\u2019s tour, but it also bolstered Kim\u2019s belief that she was capable of translating her stunning amateur deeds to the highest tiers of women\u2019s golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt changed, obviously my mindset, and going into the next five years that I\u2019m exempt into, obviously I\u2019ve now got the luxury to pick and choose my schedule,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully (that will allow me to) be able to co-ordinate with my team (so) we can build development blocks to further improve, and in terms of winning a tournament, I\u2019m never going to back down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always just going to try and find ways to improve my game, and it also helps mentally knowing that I\u2019ve got five years sorted and I don\u2019t have to worry about keeping my card. There are probably just less worries.\u201d<\/p>\n
One astonishing shot at the right moment confirmed her status as a major winner for life, but she said it did not alter her personality. She still loves her mates and still loves to let rip with a joke or two. <\/p>\n
Grace Kim is sprayed with champagne after her triumph in the Evian Championship last year.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
That sense of humour? The stunner at the Evian is not the only footage of Kim that caught the eyes of the golf world.<\/p>\n
It is a few years old now, but when she was an amateur, she and a mate Becky Kay had the good fortune of watching fellow Aussie star Hannah Green win her first major at the Hazeltine National in 2019.<\/p>\n
The trick? Well, Kim and co did not mind making a fashion statement when watching from outside the ropes instead of being the one putting on the show while wearing yellow tutus, green tights and blue capes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that\u2019s going to come out again very shortly since we\u2019re going to Hazeltine soon,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t know what I was thinking. Clearly I just didn\u2019t give a crap about what other people thought about us. We just wanted to make sure that people knew that we were there. And clearly everyone knew. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe previous year we wore aprons that had, like, bikini photos and … a budgie smuggler of Aussie flags, and then the following year (we thought), \u2018Oh, we\u2019ve got to kind of try and top that\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cI went over with the same girl (and we were) trying to figure out ways to pretty much just further embarrass ourselves, and then we ended up somehow with the green suit and the yellow tutu.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recent reset as part of Kim\u2019s collaboration with Golf Australia and Ripper GC back in Australia also gave her the chance to finetune a couple of aspects of her game after a middling start to the season. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously (they are) not entirely the results I would have liked,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cMissing the first major cut was probably a big one but I think it\u2019s almost like a blessing in disguise that I was able to get together with the coach the following week, which was an off week, and work on a few things that I kind of lacked during that first major. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt got to a point where it was just … in my head that I wasn\u2019t holding enough putts, which then translates over to my long game not being good enough, because I\u2019m not hitting it close enough, and it just kept going. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was … more of a mental fight than anything, but we were able to figure out some patterns that I always kind of work on (and) I\u2019m able to have a bit more of a guideline as to what I need to work on in terms of my technical game, and then hopefully we can correlate that over to, well, translate that over to the golf course at Riviera.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim has played Riviera once courtesy of an invitation from a connection and is looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rough was up that day, so that was quite nice to be able to have that major risk still,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember it being not overly long, but I know USGA can obviously make it quite long. The greens were very nice. I mean, overall it was just like a typical American golf course setup.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It did not have) the major vibe just yet but it was really cool to see the iconic 18th green with the condos in the background and all that. So it was quite cool to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grace Kim felt in her element as she cracked jokes and passed on tips to some of Australia\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[415,3546,987,976,3549,3537,3548,3543,3554,3550,426,3541,1918,962,3542,517,3547,3535,1614,44,747,3545,3551,2761,3539,3555,3534,3558,3557,3553,3531,968,3536,3556,399,3540,3533,3538,3532,3552,3544],"class_list":["post-5936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-aaron-rai","tag-amateur-ranks","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-golfers","tag-australian-woman","tag-becky-kay","tag-bikini-photos","tag-brightest-young-talents","tag-budgie-smuggler","tag-cam-rory","tag-career-highlight","tag-course-setup","tag-courtney-walsh","tag-development-blocks","tag-europe","tag-fairytale-finish","tag-fashion-statement","tag-france","tag-golf","tag-golf-course","tag-golf-world","tag-goof-fortune","tag-grace-kim","tag-highest-tiers","tag-junior-star","tag-junior-talent","tag-karrie-webb","tag-love-kids","tag-mental-fight","tag-national-women","tag-oceania","tag-riviera-country-club","tag-riviera-golf-club","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-stunning-amateur-deeds","tag-turned-professional","tag-watching-fellow","tag-wearing-yellow-tutus","tag-western-europe","tag-young-golfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}