Still a longshot

Today's Palm Beach Post features an article about 2005 US Women's Golf Open Champ Birdie Kim and her relationship with teaching pro Bob Toski. The 2006 Open begins Thursday in Rhode Island.

Birdie's relationship with Toski is interesting, but I've heard it all before. The Post is just playing catch up after a year of fixating on Morgan Pressel. I watched Birdie play at the 2005 ADT, and that and her results since her win have not left me impressed. She is one of the weaker 'Seoul Sisters' and in all likelihood will be considered a fluke major Championship winner. That said, Birdie's birdie from the bunker on 18 will always make her remembered.

Maybe I'll be wrong about this prediction. I'm hoping so.

Side note- Birdie won the 2005 US Open by 2 shots, not one as Alan Tays writes. I called the correction in to the Post.

Open Post- Wizbang, Third World County,

Bob Toski and Birdie Kim — the term "Odd Couple" doesn't do justice to the pairing of the outspoken, cocky, funny, often profane American instructor and the polite, shy golfer from South Korea.

There is 55 years' difference in their ages (Toski is 79, Kim 24) and a gap between the cultures of their countries. Yet somehow the two teamed a year ago to win the biggest title in women's golf, the U.S. Women's Open.

How improbable was it? Before the Open, Kim had played in 33 events on the LPGA Tour. She had missed 24 cuts, had finished in the top 10 only once and had finished under par in a tournament only twice.

Kim didn't have to finish under par in the 2005 Women's Open at Cherry Hills Country Club near Denver. Her final score of 287 — three over par — was good enough to beat Brittany Lang and Boca Raton's Morgan Pressel by one shot.

Kim's final shot was a bunker blast that found the cup for a birdie. It was the only birdie made on the 18th hole that day.

Toski was watching at home in Boca Raton with his wife, Lynn.

"I get so excited, I run to the TV set and try to pick the TV set up," Toski said. "I think I'm running over to pick up (Kim). I'm going ballistic."

Pressel was in the 18th fairway, needing a birdie of her own on the tough, uphill 18th hole to force a playoff. When she couldn't do it, the title was Kim's.

Kim called Toski that night.

"I was kidding her about all the money she made — 'You're going to have to pay taxes now, you're going to need a new manager,' " Toski said. "Then she made a very great gesture. She says, 'I'd like to send the trophy to your house. Will you keep the trophy for me?' "

And until recently, when Toski had to pack it up and send it back to the United States Golf Association, Kim's U.S. Women's Open trophy has made its home in Bob and Lynn Toski's Boca Raton living room.

The odd thing about Toski's relationship with Kim is that Toski, a member of the World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame, didn't really work on Kim's swing.

Ju-Yun Kim (she later took the nickname "Birdie" at the suggestion of David Leadbetter) was introduced by her father to Toski in 2001. Kim wanted to try to qualify for the Futures Tour.

"I recognized immediately how talented she was and how structurally, she was almost perfect," Toski said. "You talk about almost perfect fundamentals..."

Toski thought the Futures Tour was too low a goal.

"I said 'Ju, you should try to qualify for the big tour, not the Futures Tour.' "

Kim qualified for the Futures Tour, where she won two of her first five events. In 2003, she finished fourth on the money list, earning exempt status on the 2004 LPGA Tour. In her first year on the LPGA Tour, Kim played in 20 tournaments, making three cuts and finishing no higher than 42nd.

Toski, who hadn't seen her since her Futures Tour days, learned that Kim's father had her switch instructors.

"Her father sent her to Leadbetter. I didn't know it."

Other than acknowledging that he did not get along with him, Toski declines to comment on the elder Kim. As for Leadbetter, Toski thinks he and Kim were just a bad fit for each other.

Golf teachers, Toski says, are "all architects and builders in our own right. We may agree architecturally on what a golf swing should be like, but when we build it with a player, everybody's going to do it differently. I have great respect for David, I think he's a great teacher. But he and Birdie, it didn't work out."

Toski knew some caddies on the LPGA Tour and made inquiries about what was going on with Kim. He told one caddy he wouldn't ask Kim to return, "but if you talk to her, you tell her I'm concerned about her golf game and if she'd like to come back with me to call me."

Kim made the call. Her father was out of the picture, returning to Korea. Her mother had given birth to a son.

Kim, who has a home in Fort Lauderdale, resumed her relationship with Toski. Sometimes they practiced at his Toski-Battersby teaching facility in Coconut Creek, but more often they took the lessons onto the course, to Parkland Golf Club or Sherbrooke Country Club in Lake Worth.

"You don't learn how to score on the practice tee," he told her. "You've got to go out and play golf. We're going to play golf every day and I'm going to find out why you don't make a number."

Toski challenged Kim, telling her, "I'm 70-some-odd years old and I can beat you." He offered her $20 for every shot she beat him by."

"He always plays the same tee, and he doesn't want to lose," Kim said. "He gives me a good way to practice."

"All of a sudden, her confidence comes back," Toski said. "But I'm teaching her how to play golf, not mechanically how to hit a golf shot. I said 'You know, once a basketball player learns how to dribble and shoot, he doesn't think about how he does it. He just does it. You've got to learn to play golf that way.' "

Kim started 2005 by making three consecutive checks and earned her first LPGA top 10, a tie for seventh in the Chick-fil-A tournament near Atlanta.

But there was still nothing about her game to suggest she would win the Open.

Toski, however, thought the Open was the perfect tournament and Cherry Hills the perfect course for her.

"You're not a low scorer," he told her. "You are 70, 71, 72, 69, and this venue is right up your alley.

"I want you to put the ball in the fairway. I don't (care) what you put it in the fairway with. If you've got to use a 5-wood and have a 3-wood to the green, put it in the fairway. You can hit a 3-wood as good as most of those girls can hit 5-irons."

After each of the first three rounds, when Kim shot 74, 72 and 69, Toski called her and her caddy, Miles Nixon.

"I kept telling her 'You can steal the Open. This is a perfect setup for you to steal the Open.' "

On Saturday night, Toski told Kim not to be nervous about her Sunday playing partner, Michelle Wie.

"Michelle Wie will not break 80," he told Kim. "She won't be able to handle the pressure. She's too young."

Wie shot a final-round 82, but she had a part in the final-hole drama when she put her approach in the same bunker that caught Kim's 7-wood shot, and hit out of the bunker first.

"If Michelle Wie hits a good bunker shot from where she is, Ju will feed off that," Toski told Lynn.

"Michelle was farther away and had an easier shot. She didn't have to get the ball up as quick. Michelle hit a good shot."

Kim hit a better one, perhaps the best shot she'll ever hit. Kim's 2006 results — six missed cuts in 11 events with a best finish of T19 — again make her a huge long shot to win the Open.

"What I did is make her family," Toski said. "I would ask her to join us, Lynn and I, for dinner... and that created a bond or a closeness where she felt like I was really passionately interested in her ability to play golf and become a successful pro. I wasn't just another teacher who had given her a golf lesson."