ANAHEIM – Golf runs in the Chung family, and Fairmont Prep senior Kristin Chung feels the pressure.
Her father, Hwan, was South Korea’s No. 1-ranked amateur two years ago.
Her older brother, Jack, a Sunny Hills High graduate, is a former CIF state champion who played a year of golf at Long Beach State before recently turning pro.
Chung could have began playing earlier than she did.
Music was her first love. Singing, a close second. Her mother used to sing.
Raised in Korea and then in Canada before her family moved to Orange County, Chung grew up around music. She loved musical instruments, playing piano, flute, guitar, drums and violin.
Golf, Chung said, served no purpose.
“I didn’t have the same passion for golf as my dad or my brother,” said Chung, whose family moved to the United States when she was in fifth grade. “I didn’t understand why I had to put a ball into a hole.”
Chung rarely practiced when she did play.
But golf came naturally. She started in junior high, late at age 12. She’d watched her brother play for six-plus years before then, so even as a beginner, the sport seemed easy.
She developed skills quicker than girls with similar levels of experience, and she said her father told her she was better as a teenager than he and his son were at that age.
“That’s when my mom and dad wanted me to pursue a career more than music,” Chung said.
Former Fairmont Prep golf coach David Esparza remembers first seeing Chung in 2010, at one of Fairmont’s many feeder campuses. He knew of her pedigree, but figured Chung would enroll at a local high school with an established golf program.
She instead enrolled at Fairmont.
Chung won Academy League and CIF Northern Individual championships her freshman year, becoming the school’s first player to advance to the Women’s Southern California Golf Association SoCal Championship. Her nine-hole stroke average of 38.75 set a school record, and Chung was named first-team All-Orange County at season’s end.
“When I won CIF, I really liked that feeling,” Chung said. “And whenever I play, I always try to think about that feeling and play for that. … When I play, golf is like life. There are struggles, but you can overcome them.”
But, through the years, Chung never gave up singing.
She once was a top-15 finalist on “Superstar K,” a Korean singing competition similar to “American Idol.” This summer she took a break from golf altogether to participate in multiple singing competitions.
Esparza called Chung “the showstopper” at Fairmont talent shows.
“You have to beg her to sing,“ he said. “But once she sings, she’s got pipes. She’s very shy until you give her a microphone. That’s when the performer comes out.”
On a recent summer trip to New York City for a USGA amateur qualifier, Chung visited Columbia, Harvard and Yale. She committed to Columbia shortly after returning home, and plans, for the time being, to play four years of college golf.
Chung practiced this summer with LPGA professional and former world No. 1 Inbee Park. Hyo Joo Kim is also a role model of Chung’s.
Fairmont golf coach Mike Wheeler said, in turn, Chung’s influence on the 10 other girls playing golf at Fairmont is prevalent.
Said Esparza: “We’re lucky to have her.”
Contact the writer: 714-704-3790 or bwhitehead@ocregister.com
