Mi-Hyun Kim ( ko, 김미현, born 13 January 1977) is a professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

er from

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. She turned professional in 1996 and won 11 events on the

LPGA of Korea Tour The LPGA of Korea Tour is a South Korean professional golf tour for women. LPGA stands for Ladies Professional Golf Association. LPGA of Korea runs this tour, not the American LPGA. It is one of the world's five leading women's golf tours. Based o ...

(KLPGA) between 1996 and 2000. In 1999, she joined the

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of weekl ...

and was named was Rookie of the Year that year. She has won eight LPGA events with her best finish in a major championship second place at the 2001

Women's British Open The Women's Open (originally known as the Women's British Open, and still widely referred to by that name outside the UK) is a women's major golf championships, major championship in Professional golf tours#Women's tours, women's professional go ...

Background

Born in

Incheon Incheon (; ; or Inch'ŏn; literally "kind river"), formerly Jemulpo or Chemulp'o (제물포) until the period after 1910, officially the Incheon Metropolitan City (인천광역시, 仁川廣域市), is a city located in northwestern South Kore ...

, Kim received the nicknamed "Peanut" because she stands only tall. LPGA golfers also refer to her as "Kimmy." She was inspired to move to the United States by

Se Ri Pak Pak Se-ri or Se-ri Pak ( ko, 박세리, ; born 28 September 1977) is a South Korean former professional golfer who played on the LPGA Tour from 1998 to 2016. She was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2007. Career overview Born in D ...

, and they along with Grace Park and

Hee-Won Han Han Hee-won (Korean 한희원) (born 10 June 1978 in Seoul) is a retired South Korean professional golfer on the LPGA Tour. She was a member of the LPGA Tour from 2001 until her retirement in 2014 and won six LPGA Tour events during her career. ...

– the four nicknamed the "Seoul Sisters" – are considered pioneers in the surge of outstanding South Korean women's golfers on the LPGA Tour. Her swing is characterized by an unusually long backswing that has become shorter in recent years.

Charitable giving

In May 2007, Kim donated $100,000 of her $210,000 prize money from winning the

SemGroup Championship The SemGroup Championship was a golf tournament for professional female golfers that was part of the LPGA Tour. It was played annually from 2001 to 2008 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The tournament was originally known as the Williams Championship, with th ...

to victims of a recent tornado that severely damaged the town of

Greensburg, Kansas Greensburg is a city in, and the county seat of, Kiowa County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population of the city was 740. It is home to the world's largest hand-dug well. On the evening of May 4, 2007, Greens ...

. The tornado occurred during the SemGroup tournament. Kim did not have any connection to Greensburg or any of its residents. Commenting on her donation, she said, "Honestly, I made a lot of money in the United States on the LPGA Tour. Most of time, I get the money here and donate to South Korea. But, I want to help people here, too. The win was a surprise for me and I think God gave it to me like a special present or he is using me like, 'okay, I give you this, but after that you give to help the people.'" A year later on the eve on the 2008 SemGroup Championship, the president of the United Way of the Plains in

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...

appeared with Kim at the pre-tournament press conference to publicly thank her and announce that the publicity surrounding Kim's donation had spurred further donations totaling $1.2 million and that money is being used to build 25 homes for low- and moderate-income individuals displaced by the tornado.

Personal

Kim retired from the LPGA Tour after playing several tournaments during the 2011 season. In December 2008 she married

Lee Won-hee Lee Won-hee (born July 19, 1981) is a South Korean quadruple judo champion. Lee won the gold medal in the men's lightweight division at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. He was the world champion in 2003. He also won the gold medal i ...

, a former Olympic gold medalist in judo who now teaches judo at a university in South Korea. In 2009 they had a son, Ye Sung Lee, who was born in

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

. The couple divorced in 2012. She currently teaches golf in South Korea. A golf teaching/practice facility built by her father is named the Mi-Hyun Kim Golf World.

Professional wins (19)

LPGA Tour (8)

LPGA Tour playoff record (3–3)

LPGA of Korea Tour wins (13)

Tournaments in bold denotes major tournaments in KLPGA

Results in LPGA majors

^ The Women's British Open replaced the du Maurier Classic as an LPGA major in 2001. CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" tied

Summary

*Starts – 48 *Wins – 0 *2nd-place finishes – 1 *3rd-place finishes – 1 *Top 3 finishes – 2 *Top 5 finishes – 4 *Top 10 finishes – 13 *Top 25 finishes – 19 *Missed cuts – 9 *Most consecutive cuts made – 16 *Longest streak of top-10s – 3

Team appearances

Amateur *

Espirito Santo Trophy The Espirito Santo Trophy (World Women's Amateur Team Championships) is a biennial world amateur team golf championship for women organised by the International Golf Federation. The inaugural event was held in 1964. It was instituted by the Fren ...

(representing South Korea):

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

References

External links

*
Biography on seoulsisters.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Mi-Hyun South Korean female golfers LPGA Tour golfers LPGA of Korea Tour golfers Sungkyunkwan University alumni Sportspeople from Incheon Gwangsan Kim clan 1977 births Living people