Danielle Kang will be in a unique position come Thursday. When the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship gets underway at Kemper Lakes in suburban Chicago, Kang will be stepping into a new role; that of defending champion. She won last year’s event at Olympia Fields, also located near Chicago, to record her first win as a professional.
The win gave the 25-year old Kang a new mental outlook. “For the last two years of my career, what bothered me was the fact that I hadn’t won,” she said. “I never doubted that I had the ability to win. I just wanted it so bad and so quickly.”
Kang’s ability was never in doubt. She didn’t start playing golf until age 14 but immediately qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open. Within five years had won back-to-back U.S. Women’s Amateur title (in 2010-11). She joined the LPGA Tour at age 19 after a stint a Pepperdine and over the next five years recorded eight top-10 finishes.
But victory eluded her until that June afternoon when she birdied the 72nd hole to edge Brooke Henderson to win by one stroke and become the eighth player in history to make her first LPGA win a major. She went on to finish the 2017 season with over a million dollars in earnings and earned a place on the U.S. Solheim Cup team.
So far in 2018, Kang has recorded four top-10 finishes on the LPGA Tour, including a runner-up effort in Singapore in March and a fourth-place finish at the U.S. Women’s Open earlier this month.
On a certain level Kang’s victory was bittersweet because her father wasn’t in hand to share it with her. K.S. Kang lost a battle with cancer late in 2013. Father and daughter had a close relationship; K.S. Kang caddied for Danielle during her two U.S. Women’s Amateur wins.
“I really wanted to win while my dad was still around,’ Danielle says, “and it didn’t happen, and it created a lot of anger. But other than that, having (her first career win) come in such a magnificent way, winning a major as a first win the way I did, takes a lot of weight off me and I end up telling myself that it’s okay.”
While it’s been five years since her father’s passing, Kang still feels connected to him. She writes notes to him in a journal and visits his gravesite in Southern California regularly, making the trip from her home in La Vegas. Following her victory at the Women’s PGA Championship she placed a caddie bib and flowers on his grave.
“Whether people believe it or not, I’ve never gone a single day in my life without talking to either of my parents or my brother (who plays on the Web.com Tour),” King explains. “I talk to the three of them every day of my life.
“My dad specifically, he messaged me every day before I teed off. No matter what time of the day, no matter where he was at, whether he was in Korea whether it was 3:00 a.m., I spoke to him. It was a routine. It was part of my routine to talk to him. And when that stopped, it was brutal.”
In the wake of her father’s passing, Kang felt regret over the amount of time her golf career forced her to be apart from her family. “People make a lot of sacrifices to be a golfer and be where they’re at,” she said. “For me, that I sacrificed the time really, really got to me but I think to myself, ‘If it wasn’t for golf, I wouldn’t have all the amazing memories and amazing opportunities I’ve had.”
In part due to her family’s influence, Kang is committed to helping the less fortunate. Her vehicle of choice is the United Nations Children’s Fund, with whom she is in the process of developing a partnership. UNICEF has been serving needy children around the globe since 1946, dealing with a range of issues that includes starvation, poverty, and healthcare among others.
“UNICEF has been a big goal of mine,” Kang said. “People wonder ‘Why UNICEF’? It’s because they are a multi-billion-dollar company. They’re a foundation that helps children all around the world. The work that they’ve done, and what they represent, has been incredible to me.”
Kang herself grew up in comfortable surroundings. But her parents impressed upon her the importance of helping the less fortunate, a message their daughter took to heart.
“I didn’t lack for anything,” Kang recalls. “I actually was blessed with such a wonderful family and I have an abundant amount of everything I’ve ever wanted.
“My dad and my mom are very generous people They’re caretakers, they give people so much and they never want anything back and I’ve always been raised by seeing that.”
Kang was born in San Francisco but moved several times while she was growing up. Wherever the family lived, her father followed the same ritual.
“My dad used to take me and we used to go buy food and he used to give it out to homeless people,” she recalls. “He would say ‘Not everyone has what you have. No one should be hungry.’
“I don’t believe anyone should be hungry; I’ve never been hungry in my entire life. I don’t know what starving feels like.”
When she was attending Pepperdine University, Kang lived some distance from campus. Consequently, she did not utilize the university’s dining facilities on a regular basis. Instead, she converted her meal credits into food that she distributed to the area’s homeless population.
“I bought all the credits and I spent them all on food,” she said. “I would go down to Santa Monica and give out food.”
Spend a few minutes talking with Kang and her passion for helping the less fortunate is readily apparent. She and UNICEF seem a perfect match.
“It’s not just about hunger,” she said. “It’s about health, it’s about nutrition, it’s about safety, all of that. It’s investing in a child’s mind and a child’s heart. For me, (UNICEF) has been such an amazing role model and I wanted to be a part of it. I want people to think of UNICEF when they think of my name.”
