Kim Hyo-joo's Prime Never Ends — Secret Is Effort, Not Genius

Kim Hyo-joo is Korea's original golf prodigy. In 2012, as a high school junior, she won the Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA) Tour's Lotte Mart Women's Open by nine strokes and the Japan Ladies Professional Golf Association (JLPGA) Tour's Suntory Ladies Open by four strokes. In her first-ever Japanese professional tournament, she set a string of records including youngest winner ever, fewest strokes for 18 holes (61), and most birdies in a single round (11). When she arrived at Gimpo Airport with the trophy, she smiled like the teenager she was and said, "The trophy was so heavy it made my arms sore." Kim Hyo-joo at 31 is still in her prime. On May 23 (Korea time), she won the Founders Cup, raising her LPGA Tour victory total to eight and climbing to fourth in the world rankings. A player who was ranked fourth in the world at age 20 has reached her career-best ranking again 11 years later. Kim's trademark is a fluid, smooth swing often called a "textbook swing." It looks natural, but behind it lies a fierce battle with herself more intense than anyone else's. Kim first visited a professional training center in late 2017, when she was 22. Until then, she had never once lifted a dumbbell. Apart from practicing her shots, her exercise routine consisted of little more than jumping rope and jogging. Ahead of her fourth season on the LPGA Tour, Kim maintained a daily routine of running, playing a round, shot practice, running, weight training, and running again for 40 consecutive days. Looking back on her third season, she said she realized that "your body has to be ready before your shots can be." When Kim first took up weight training, she focused on building lower-body strength with exercises such as squats holding 10-kilogram dumbbells in each hand. She trained so hard that her thighs grew too large to fit into her old pants. In the first few years after starting weight training, her lower-body muscles kept growing so much that sorting through pants became a regular chore. What matters most is that she has maintained this training habit for 10 years straight. Sun Jong-hyup, CEO of Team Glorious, who has overseen Kim's training program since 2017, said, "Among golf players, Kim Hyo-joo has by far the most visits to our center — she comes in to work out whenever she has a spare moment." He added, "Even though she's past 30, in terms of pure athletic ability she's still in the top tier." According to Sun, Kim is someone who places the utmost importance on "motivation." He explained, "She communicates and fully understands why she needs to do each exercise and how it benefits which part of her body before she trains." Ahead of this season, she focused on improving upper-body strength and made changes to her shaft to increase her driving distance. As a result, she extended her driver shot distance by up to 15 meters. Even now during the season, she completes a packed training program every day with the help of a local trainer, including three sets of pull-ups (more than 10 total) and other exercises. "If you want to experience heaven during the season, you have to go through hell during training," is Kim's motto. She has already achieved a great deal, but her willingness to throw herself into that hell is what keeps her prime from ending.

Kim Hyo-joo's Prime Never Ends — Secret Is Effort, Not Genius

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