Quit golf?

Lion Kim’s father heard him right.

Quit golf.

Stunned as he might have been, there was no mistaking the words spoken on the family’s porch that night last summer when Kim raised that possibility.

The golfer who ranked No. 2 in the country as a high school senior and improbably carried the University of Michigan to the NCAA Final Four as a sophomore didn’t see the dream anymore.

Now he had to tell his father. Not just his father, but his best friend and perhaps, most importantly, his biggest fan.

His dad’s heart hung on each stroke of his younger son’s golf game. Yong Kim rarely missed a tournament. Heck, he rarely missed a practice. He cared so much that he took up smoking to calm his nerves.

“I remember being right there when it happened,” said Kim’s brother, Jun. “They were talking a lot, and me and my mom didn’t know much about the conversation.”

The talk stretched for three hours. Kim told his father that although he sensed improvement in his game, he didn’t see results. After college, he might abandon his childhood dreams of turning pro.

Saddened but supportive, Yong told Lion that he believed in him no matter what, that he was proud of him, that he always gave it his best. Then he delivered the line that resonated.

“He said, ‘You are 21,’” Lion Kim said. “He said, ‘If this is your dream, you’re a little young to give up on it.’”

Two days later and still feeling discouraged about his future, Kim and his dad left on a trip that changed the course of his career.

They drove from their home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to Greensboro, N.C., where Yong attended a business meeting and Lion played in the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship.

“I basically went into that tournament with the mentality of no expectations, nothing,” he said. “I wanted to enjoy myself. That was it. If I played bad, oh well.”

Initially, he was unspectacular. He finished 20th in stroke play at Bryan Park’s Champions Course. But in the match-play portion of the event, he tapped a hidden pocket of confidence.

Overcoming a tepid start and outlasting a seven-hour rain delay, Kim won his first two holes over David McDaniel once the storms had stopped. The pair traded pars over six of the next seven holes. Kim held off McDaniel, 6-and-5, for the U.S. Amateur title on July 17, 2010.

Suddenly, he was flush with confidence. Suddenly, he secured an automatic invitation to The Masters.

In a week’s time, Kim had gone from considering an exit from the game he loved to a spot in the golf’s most prestigious event.

Nine-and-a-half months later, that event has arrived. Kim tees off today at 12:31 p.m., paired with Jose Maria Olazabal and Davis Love III for the first two rounds.

He’s only the third Wolverine in history to ever reach Augusta National. Chuck Kocsis played there 11 times between 1937 and 1961. Bill Newcomb missed the cut in 1963.

Kim is the first Michigan golfer to reach the Masters while still in school.

“His game has always been there,” said Matt Carroll, Kim’s best friend from high school and a college golfer at UConn. “Now he’s starting to peak. It’s just awesome.”

*****

Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia until age 9, Kim didn’t pick up clubs for the first time until his dad brought him to a driving range a few minutes from his New Jersey home.

At age 11, it was love after two lessons.

“We were both taking lessons, and I don’t know, it was right away that he realized that was his path,” his brother said.

So much so that it wasn’t long before he persuaded his dad to send him to golf camp in Orlando, Fla., and not long after that the two rented an apartment in the area.

Kim attended high school at Lake Mary Prep School in the northern Orlando suburbs. His dad stayed with him for his first three years, before heading north and leaving Kim to live on his own as a high school senior.

On the golf course, he excelled. He maintained a nine-hole 33.75 scoring average as a junior in 2006, earned AJGA all-American honors three years in a row and ranked the No. 2 senior in the country by Golfweek.

Off the course, he never let success affect him. Freedom and flexibility presented by his living situation would have been easy to misuse, but Kim’s greatest transgression was staying up late to play basketball on the courts at the apartment complex.

Good thing he focused on golf.

“He can only go left,” Carroll said. “He’s a lefty on the court. He can’t dribble right. But he’s got a shot. He’s got a stroke from three. But I’m slimmer than him and I can body him down low.”

College offers flooded his voicemail and inbox throughout the summer between his junior and senior years. All the big schools recruited him: Clemson, Texas, Florida, North Carolina.
What those schools didn’t know was that their talk of hallowed traditions and all-American golfers backfired.

“Florida, Clemson, Georgia, you become an all-American, and OK, you’re one of the 50 all-Americans we’ve had here, good for you,” Kim said. “I didn’t want to be one of those ‘other’ great players.”

He wanted to make a deep impact on a program that needed one.

When Michigan coach Andrew Sapp emailed him that September, Kim had an intuitive sense that Michigan was the right place. Not only did the Wolverines present that sort of challenge, coming off a ninth-place finish in the conference, but the school presented the academic challenge he desired.

Since he arrived, he delivered on his intent. The Wolverines reached the NCAA Final Four his sophomore season, finished fourth in the Big Ten last year and missed a repeat trip to the NCAA finals by a single shot.

“He’s helped put this university on the map,” Sapp said. “You look at most of the guys on the team who are younger than him, and almost all of them came to school in direct relation or indirectly because of Lion Kim.”

*****

In the fall season, it was easy for Kim to backburner thoughts of The Masters -- it was still far away.

Throughout the spring, it’s been a different story. He estimates that 70 percent of his focus has been on the tournament. The Wolverines, school and family vie for the remaining portion of his time.

He’s traveled to Augusta three times -- once over Thanksgiving, once over Christmas break and once in February -- playing the course twice on each visit.

Augusta National has a familiar feel. It was designed by Alister MacKenzie, who designed the University of Michigan Golf Course in 1931. The courses have similarities. The greens are deceptive in their simplicity, there are only a few hazards, the key to success is placement. But the multiple visits weren’t only about gauging the nuances of the course.

“It’s definitely been good for him to get a feel for the aura of Augusta National, so there’s no shock when he first steps on the grounds,” Sapp said.

(Audio: Lion Kim talks about his practice round Wednesday).

Sapp has never been himself, but he’ll be there this week, along with Kim’s parents and brother watching the first Masters golfer ever clad in maize-and-blue gear carrying a Michigan golf bag.

Next up for Kim is most likely a decision to turn pro later this summer. The decision is not yet final, but his confidence has returned and cemented itself since he wavered in the down-and-out days before the U.S. Amateur.

“Winning that gave me huge confidence,” he said. “I started believing that this is what I want to do, and that this is the right path.”

What was his alternate plan if the doldrums never passed?

“I have no idea, no idea,” he said. “I don’t know what I would want to do other than professional golf. Golf has been my whole life, basically. I feel like I want to do that for a very long time.”

Pete Bigelow covers Michigan sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2556, via email at petebigelow@annarbor.com and followed on Twitter @PeterCBigelow.