Golf: Karrie Webb says Grace Kim's major win the first of many victories
Kim, who has jumped a mammoth 74 places on the world rankings to a career-high 25 after taking out the Evian Championship in France in stunning fashion, was set to tee it up in March before the tournament was cancelled due to fears over Cyclone Alfred.
It looms as one of the few events for Kim to play in at home in 2025 after the women's Australian Open was shifted to February 2026 when Golf Australia ditched the dual-gender format in favour of stand-alone national Opens.
Webb, who won seven majors, has a close bond with Kim, who won the Karrie Webb Scholarship four times, and the fourth time the pair spent six days together on a US road trip playing courses including Pine Valley and Winged Foot and sharing a hotel room.
Grace Kim picked up a mammoth $1.8m for winning the Evian Championship. Picture:After seeing the 24-year-old's miraculous eagle, birdie, eagle finish to win on a second playoff hole against world No.2 Jeeno Thitikul, Webb was confident the win, as well as the $1.8m winner's cheque and five years of playing security, would combine to unleash an all-new, extra confident Kim.
'I think this will take the lid off now,' said Webb, who watched Kim close out the tournament from her Florida home.
'I think Grace knows she's got a place to play for five years. Financially, this will give her some breathing room just to go and play, so I'm excited to see what she can do now with a bit of freedom.
'She has put in so much hard work. I played with her before she won her scholarship and her game's night and day from that 15, 16, 17-year-old to now. She didn't hit it very far back then. She really relied on her short game a lot.
'Now, she hits it long enough and she's a terrific ball striker. She's a very smart player.'
Kim is showered by fellow Aussie Minjee Lee after winning the Evian Championship Picture: AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani
For her part, Kim also conceded the mental side of her game was the area that would lift her to new heights.
'I think I've come to learn that it's not quite my game technically. It's more on course, just the skills that I have to learn through experience being on the Tour week in, week out,' she said after collecting her trophy.
Kim also recognised the 'money can't buy' experience of that road trip with Webb in helping shape her career.
'I don't know golf courses very well, but we played Pine Needles ... sorry, Pine Valley, and I didn't quite know the big deal about it,' she said.
'So played Pine Valley, played Winged Foot. It was just an incredible week with her. It was a whole week. We shared a hotel room, so, yeah, memory that money can't buy.'
The 2026 Australian WPGA Championship and Festival of Golf will return to the Gold Coast from March 19-22 in 2026, with The Palms course at the renowned Sanctuary Cove Golf and Country Club to host the action.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
24 minutes ago
- The Age
Un-Australian, tepid and toothless. Wallabies slammed over first Test performance
The sound in Brisbane was not of rage or rancour, merely one of bleak, sullen resignation. On a galling evening for the Wallabies, this stadium, traditionally such a cauldron for the hosts, felt more like a mausoleum, with home fans' despair at their team's inadequacies so all-engulfing that the hype man had to plead with them to 'make some noise'. After a 12-year wait for their players to collide with the British and Irish Lions once more, they had dared to expect some snarl and defiance befitting the occasion. But instead they witnessed a glaring mismatch, with the lack of cohesion on the pitch so painful that rare incursions into the tourists' 22 were greeted with bitterly ironic cheers. All told, the shift in atmosphere had taken just 42 minutes, with Dan Sheehan punishing an errant Australian line-out to put the Lions out of sight. At kick-off the scene on Caxton Street, on the approach to Suncorp Stadium, had been magnificent, with the seething convergence of red shirts an encapsulation of everything a Lions Test should be. The series opener would soon curdle, though, into a grisly reckoning for Australia, whose status as the sixth-best team in the world looked flattering in the face of the Lions' bombardment and eventual 27-19 win. While their deficiencies had been well-documented, surely they would channel some snarl, some quintessential Queensland defiance, in a city that demanded it? In all honesty, the fight materialised far too late. Australia were tepid, toothless, their only highlight coming courtesy of an inspired individual flourish from Max Jorgensen, stripping the ball from Hugo Keenan for a try against the run of play. Even Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, whose prodigious athleticism had been heralded as a game-changing factor, was anonymous for long periods. Save for an improbable late riposte, they were inferior in all departments, so traumatised by early brilliance from the Lions' all-Scottish midfield of Finn Russell, Sione Tuipolutu and Huw Jones that they could not conjure any decisive response. Their salvaging of some respectability in the scoreline, with a late try limiting the Lions' margin of victory to eight points, painted a misleading picture of this Test, in which there was not so much a gulf in class as a chasm. For all that captain Harry Wilson had been galvanised by a pep talk from one of his predecessors, the World Cup-winning John Eales, Australia were a pale imitation of the great Wallabies sides. Where Eales is celebrated as the mastermind of that memorable series triumph in 2001, Joe Schmidt's side will require a miracle to achieve anything comparable. For large swathes of this game their performance was, quite simply, un-Australian, bereft of ferocity or any apparent belief they could win. It was not just their lack of ingenuity or tendency to kick far too often in an abject first half, but their actions at the end, when they booted the ball out of play as if congratulating themselves on a bonus-point loss. How odd, too, to see them mingling happily with the Lions at the final whistle, simply relieved that they had not suffered a humiliation. So much for the notion of a defeat, any defeat, eating away at the true Australian's soul.
ABC News
24 minutes ago
- ABC News
Wallabies to assess damage of Lions Test loss in the 'cold light of day'
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt has admitted his side was off the pace in Saturday night's 27-19 loss to the British and Irish Lions, but expressed pride in their refusal to give up. The Lions went 1-0 up in the three-Test series in Brisbane, having controlled proceedings from the opening whistle. With the match only 20 seconds old, the Wallabies conceded a penalty to allow Finn Russell to give the Lions a 3-0 lead, which they built upon only minutes later when Sione Tuipulotu scored a converted try. Early in the second half, the Lions led 24-5, but the Wallabies showed spirit to score two tries inside the final 13 minutes of the match to cut the final margin to eight points. They perhaps could have put the Lions under pressure midway through the second half, had a Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii try not been disallowed. "I felt we fought our way back into the game," Schmidt said at the post-match media conference. "I felt if we could get within one score, you never know what could happen. "I'm not saying the Lions didn't deserve to win it, because I feel that they did on the balance of what they did in that first quarter and first half. "Immediately after half-time it was a bridge that was a long way away to try to get from five [points] to 24. "So we'll have a look in the cold light of day and be a bit more analytical … but [I'm] very proud of the way the players fought their way back." Schmidt said the Lions' halves pairing of Russell and Jamison Gibson-Park was pivotal in the tourists' win. "I thought Jamison Gibson-Park and Finn Russell controlled the game incredibly well for the Lions," he said. "They didn't give a lot of breathing space and that made it tough for us to find access points into the game. They got a lot of pressure around the collision area. "So there are things obviously we are going to look at and address the balance. I think there are some positives for us to take away. "I'm not sure what the predictions were before the game but to have a margin of eight points I think is testament to the character of the players and the way they fought back." Schmidt said Rob Valetini and lock Will Skelton would be available for next Saturday night's second Test at the MCG. Both were ruled out of the first Test with calf injuries but trained on Saturday morning. Schmidt praised Tom Lynagh's performance as Wallabies fly-half in what was his first start at Test level. Lynagh — whose father Michael played for the Wallabies in the same position against the Lions 36 years ago — showed no signs of being intimidated in just his fourth Test. He survived being tackled in the air by Tom Curry on the stroke of half-time, an incident that could have earned the Lions back-rower a yellow card. "Not a lot of front-foot opportunity for him [Lynagh] but there's no way he lacks for courage," Schmidt said. "He made some really good tackles out there, carried the ball when he needed to, slipped through and got a nice offload away at one stage. "I thought he kicked pretty well, as well." Lynagh said he was not overwhelmed by the occasion, with a crowd of 52,229 in attendance at Lang Park. "No nerves going into the game, no point to prove," he said. "Just [went] out there and [played] my game." Wallabies winger Max Jorgensen — who scored a spectacular try in the first half — admired Lynagh's resolve under the defensive pressure exerted by the Lions. "He's a bloody tough kid. He takes some shots but gets up straight away," Jorgensen said. "For him to make his starting debut, I'm stoked for him. He's a bloody good player."
ABC News
24 minutes ago
- ABC News
Live updates: Sebastian Fundora vs Tim Tszyu 2, Manny Pacquiao world title fight in Las Vegas
Australian super welterweight Tim Tszyu is looking to reclaim a world title in a rematch with the man who bloodied him last year, Sebastian Fundora. Then, eight-weight world champion Manny Pacquiao fights Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight title. Follow all the action in our live blog.
