Chan Kim didn’t begin playing the game until he was almost a teenager, but he soon made up for lost time, building a successful amateur career before turning pro. Since then, he has continued to impress with a healthy number of victories leading to a PGA Tour card in 2023.
Here are 15 things to know about him.
Chan Kim Facts
1. Chan Kim was born on 24 March 1990 in Suwon, South Korea before he and his family moved to Hawaii.
2. He took up the game when he was 12 and shot even-par for the first time around 18 months later.
3. He won his first junior tournament when he was 14, and that feeling was enough to convince him he wanted to make a career playing the game.
4. During high school, Chan relocated to Arizona to pursue golf, eventually enrolling at Arizona State, where he studied for two years between 2008 and 2009.
5. As an amateur, he won the 2007 Hawaii Amateur, the Arizona Stroke Play Championship in 2008 and 2010, and the 2009 Pacific Coast Amateur.
6. In an interview with Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club,, he chose a dream golf foursome Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.
7. He once made an albatross on the 18th at Grayhawk Golf Club in Arizona.
8. Kim turned professional in 2010 and played on circuits including the PGA Tour Canada, Challenge Tour and Asian Tour. However, most of his success came on the Japan Golf Tour, where he won eight times between 2017 and 2022.
9. He won the 2020/21 Japan Golf Tour Order of Merit.
10. In 2023, he became the 12th player to win back-to-back Korn Ferry Tour titles on the way to finishing second on its points list to earn his first PGA Tour card.
11. In the second of his victories, the Albertsons Boise Open, he became the first player in Korn Ferry Tour history to win an event without making a bogey.
12. His first season on the PGA Tour brought him two top-10 finishes – a T8 at the Mexico Open and a T6 at the Corales Puntacana Championship.
13. He’s a gaming enthusiast and is a big fan of Call of Duty.
14. One of his superstitions when he's playing well with a particular number on his ball is to keep using a ball with that number for the rest of his round.
15. His best finish at a Major was T11 in the 2017 Open at Royal Birkdale.
