August 6, 2018
SPORTS
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
Asians in American sports w Asian Americans in world sports
Michael Kim wins his first PGA event in record-breaking style
By Mike Street
Special to The Asian Reporter
he current Professional Golf
Association (PGA) season has had
its share of firsts, as ten different
golfers have already won their first
tournament. The tenth golfer achieved
that distinction last month, when
Korean-American Michael Kim won the
2018 John Deere Classic (JDC). But Kim
didn’t just win his first tournament — he
set two tournament records along the way.
If you’ve never heard of Michael Kim,
you can be forgiven, since the just-turned-
25-year-old (he celebrated his birthday
during the JDC) has had a quiet PGA
career to this point. He qualified for the
PGA tour in 2016, after ranking 13th on
the money list on the 2015 Web.com tour.
Up until the 2018 JDC, Kim’s best finish
on the PGA tour had been a tie for third at
last season’s Safeway Open. He’s usually
distinguished himself in other tourna-
ments merely by making the cut, which
he’d done in 41 of 57 tournaments before
this season.
Though he’s had a low profile in the
PGA, Kim had a fine amateur career
before turning pro in 2013. Born in Seoul,
South Korea, Kim moved to California
with his family when he was seven. A year
later, his father introduced Michael and
his older brother Richard to golf, and
Michael grew up to become a high-school
standout at Torrey Pines High.
At Torrey Pines, Kim and his golf team
won the Southern California champion-
ship for his first three years before
winning the state championship his senior
year. Kim graduated from Torrey Pines in
2011, the same year that a remarkable
group of seniors from across the country
also graduated from high school, including
Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Daniel
Berger, Xander Schauffele, and four other
PGA tour members.
T
Spieth, Thomas, Berger, and Schauffele
have all collected at least one PGA win and
have much better name recognition, but
Kim was as good — or better — than any of
them in college. Michael Kim attended the
University of California, Berkeley,
earning the Jack Nicklaus Award and
Fred Haskins Award, which go to the top
college golfer of the year, in 2013. That
same year, he played in the U.S. Open at
Merrion, finishing in a tie for 17th place as
the top amateur golfer.
After a season like that, it’s no wonder
Kim chose to go pro, forgoing his final two
years at Berkeley. But it’s a move that
seemed foolish until his win at the JDC.
Before the JDC, Kim made the cut in just
eight of the 22 PGA tournaments he’d
played in this season. His best finish had
been a tie for 15th at the Zurich Classic of
New Orleans, one of just three top-25
finishes among those eight tournaments
where he made the cut.
At the 2018 JDC, Steve Wheatcroft led
after the first round but Michael Kim was
just a stroke behind him, having shot a
career-low 63. A weather delay prevented
the field from finishing on Friday, but once
they did early Saturday morning, Kim
notched a 64 to vault into a three-shot lead.
When he shot another 64 on Saturday —
his birthday — Kim held a five-shot lead
over Bronson Borgoon. Kim birdied five of
his final six holes, totalling 25 birdies
through the first three rounds. The day
was all the more remarkable because Kim
finished his previous round before
shooting 18 more holes though two more
weather delays. By the time he finished,
he’d spent 14 hours at the course.
But on Sunday, there was no evidence of
fatigue in Kim’s game. He birdied the first
three holes, adding two more later on a day
when he did not register a bogey. That’s
not surprising, since he’d only bogeyed one
hole in each of the previous three rounds.
At the end of the day, Kim set a tourna-
ment record by shooting 27 under par
during the four-day span. He finished
eight shots ahead of his nearest
competitor, a margin of victory that was
not only a tournament record, it tied the
largest winning margin this season in the
PGA.
Tokyo company debuts Mobile Mosque ahead of 2020 Olympics
By Nicola Shannon
RECORD-BREAKING WIN. The current Pro-
fessional Golf Association season has had its share
of firsts, as ten different golfers have already won their
first tournament. The tenth golfer achieved that dis-
tinction last month, when Korean-American Michael
Kim won the 2018 John Deere Classic. But Kim didn’t
just win his first tournament — he set two tournament
records along the way. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Best of all, his mother, father, and
brother were all waiting for him on the
18th green to celebrate his first PGA win.
“I teared up a little bit on the green when I
saw them,” Kim confessed later. It was a
stroke of luck that his brother Richard
could attend; he now lives in Seoul, South
Korea, and happened to be in San Diego
visiting their parents during the
tournament.
After years of struggling, the turning
point for Michael might have been a
change in coaches. Kim was coached for
eight years by James Oh, but recently
made the difficult decision to take
instruction from John Tillery, the director
of instruction at Cuscowilla Golf Club in
Eatonton, Georgia. Tillery made some
adjustments to Kim’s approach to driving,
and the results have obviously paid off.
Others at the tournament weren’t
surprised by Kim’s victory, either. Zach
Johnson, who won the JDC in 2012 and
has been one of Kim’s mentors, said of
Kim, “He’s had some struggles and
shouldn’t, because he’s really, really,
really, really, really good. I’ve played him
in practice rounds. What you’re seeing is
just everything culminating for the
better.”
Now that the word is out about how good
Kim is, even more eyes will be on him. This
breakout victory qualifies him for the
British Open and the Open Championship,
and gives him a two-year tournament
exemption, ensuring we will see much
more of this young Asian-American golfer
in the seasons to come. And it sounds like
he can definitely handle the pressure.
World gazes at total lunar
eclipse, longest of this century
The Associated Press
Continued from page 5
OKYO — A large white and blue
truck pulls up outside a stadium in
central Japan and slowly expands
into a place of worship.
Welcome to the Mobile Mosque.
As Japan prepares to host visitors from
around the world for the 2020 Summer
Olympics, a Tokyo sports and cultural
events company has created a mosque on
wheels that its head hopes will make
Muslim visitors feel at home.
Yasuharu Inoue, the CEO of Yasu
Project, said the possibility that there
might not be enough mosques for Muslim
visitors in 2020 is alarming for a country
that considers itself part of the
international community. His Mobile
Mosques could travel to different Olympic
venues as needed.
“As an open and hospitable country, we
want to share the idea of omotenashi
(Japanese hospitality) with Muslim
people,” he said in a recent interview.
The first Mobile Mosque was unveiled
outside Toyota Stadium, a J-League soccer
venue in Toyota city, which is also the
headquarters of the car company with the
same name.
The back of the modified 25-ton truck
flipped up to reveal an entrance and then
the side slid out, doubling the width of the
truck. The 515-square-foot room can
accommodate 50 people.
Muslim guests prayed inside the
mosque, which includes outdoor taps
and a washing area for pre-worship
cleansing.
Indonesian students who were victims of
the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami also
what they saw above. Then clouds rolled
in.
“Dem
yelebesech
chereka,”
some
murmured — Amharic for “blood moon.”
“The reason that the moon turns red is
because atmospheric scattering causes red
light to pass through the atmosphere and
the composition of the atmosphere can
change if volcanic eruptions or forest fires
occur,” said Tom Kerss, an astronomer
with the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
“And the density of dust increasing in
the atmosphere can cause the moon to
appear a particularly deep red, and indeed
it has the same effect on our sunsets and
sunrises.”
In a special treat last month, Mars was
also at its closest approach to Earth since
2003, making it appear bigger and
brighter.
Excited skywatchers on social media
shared photos of the bright planet just to
the right of the moon.
North America missed out on the lunar
eclipse, but can look forward to the next
one on January 21, 2019, according to
NASA.
Associated Press writers Elias Meseret in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, Abdi Guled in Mogadishu,
Somalia, and Sam Mednick in Juba,
South Sudan contributed to this report.
T
MOBILE MOSQUE. A staff member operates the Mobile Mosque during an unveiling event for the mosque
on wheels that has a capacity of up to 50 people, at Toyota Stadium in Toyota, western Japan. As Japan prepares
to host visitors from around the world for the Summer Olympics in 2020, a Tokyo sports and cultural events
company has created a mosque on wheels that its head hopes will make Muslim visitors feel at home. (Mobile
Mosque Executive Committee via AP)
participated in the debut ceremony.
“The Mobile Mosque is very important to
Muslim people such as Japanese people or
tourists, Muslim tourists who visit Japan,”
said 14-year-old Nur Azizah. “I want to
show my friends.”
An estimated 100,000 to 200,000
Muslims live in Japan.
Tatsuya Sakaguchi, a Japanese guest,
expressed hope that the Mobile Mosque
would help open people’s minds
worldwide.
“Looking in from the outside at the
people in the mosque, they looked very
happy,” said Sakaguchi, the representa-
tive director of an Osaka retail company.
Inoue said the inspiration for the project
came to him on a trip to Qatar four years
ago.
Initially, the project organizers plan to
target international sporting events both
in Japan and overseas. Inoue said he hopes
the project will do more than fill a gap in
religious infrastructure.
“Going forward, I would be so happy if
people from Indonesia, Malaysia, Africa,
the Middle East, and, for example,
refugees who are coming from Syria are
able to use the mosque as a tool to promote
world peace,” he said.
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