4/30/2023 0 Comments Sungjae im![]() ![]() When all else fails, they rely on hand signals, perhaps none more so this season than the thumbs-up.AUGUSTA, Ga. Vranesh said he has no trouble communicating with Im, who he says is fluent in the language of golf. “I could hear them saying, ‘Keep fighting’ and saying my name,” Im said, referring to the Korean contingent in his gallery. Though Im ventured out to the part of Duluth known as Koreatown before the tournament, once play started, K-town came to him. He hardly spoke at all during dinner as he filled and refilled his bowl with grilled kimchi, bean sprouts and pork. The rush-hour commute to Honey Pig in Duluth - 24 miles from downtown Atlanta, where Im and his parents are staying this week - took more than an hour, but Im wasn’t complaining. “Too much traffic,” he said in perfect English, before Sim, who was interpreting, could answer. But after playing the tour stop there in February, he cooled on the idea. Im said he had also considered living in Los Angeles because of its vibrant South Korean community. After the Tour Championship ends on Sunday, Im and his parents plan to remain in the Atlanta area and hunt for a house. Im has spent so many nights in hotels this year that he would seem an ideal brand ambassador for either of his two preferred chains. ![]() ![]() In one eight-week stretch in the spring, he did not skip a tournament, which, he conceded, was probably too much of a good thing. With nowhere to go on off weeks but back home to South Korea, Im chose to play on and on and on. Im hasn’t established a base in the United States, which partly explains how he became the lead vagabond in the tour’s band of road warriors. Now I’ve gotten better because I can practice my putting all the time in the States.” “Before I practiced my putting only on tournament weeks,” Im said. In South Korea, he explained, the courses he played didn’t have dedicated putting areas. Im also can’t get enough of the pristine practice greens at every tour stop. Im’s favorite meal is Korean barbecue, but since arriving in the States he has developed a fondness for Subway steak sandwiches. “They’ll drop Sungjae off at the course most of the time, but I don’t see them until it’s game time on Thursday.” “They’re great,” said Brian Vranesh, his caddie. “I feel alone without them,” Im said, adding that their presence keeps his stress level down. ![]() Im’s parents have traveled with him this season, and he said he was grateful. “Our only interest in the game now is watching him play,” Im’s father, Ji Taek, said through an interpreter. In late 2017, Im traveled straight from an event in Japan to Arizona, where he qualified the following week to play the 2018 season on the PGA Tour’s minor-league circuit, where he won his first start.īoth of Im’s parents were golf enthusiasts, but as Im’s game blossomed, they stopped playing. Im enrolled at a golf academy in South Korea shortly before he entered his teenage years, turned pro at 17 and honed his game on the Japan Tour. He took his first swings, with a plastic club, at age 3. Im grew up on Jeju Island, which his manager, Rambert Sim, described as the Hawaii of South Korea. You have to hold your position a little bit more.” So deliberate is Im’s takeaway, Conners added, “you can’t start your walk when he takes back the club. ![]()
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