South Surrey golfer makes the cut for U.S. Women\u2019s Open<\/p>\n
Published 2:00 pm Thursday, May 7, 2026<\/p>\n
A South Surrey golfer is headed to the U.S. Women\u2019s Open in L.A. next month.<\/p>\n
Lauren Kim, 20, qualified for the iconic golf tournament at Rainier Golf & Country Club in Seattle last month, where she shot a six-under 70-68\u2014138 to earn her spot in the biggest championship in professional women\u2019s golf.<\/p>\n
It will be the third time she has qualified for the U.S. Women\u2019s <\/a>Open<\/a>, but Kim, who attends the University of Texas and plays for their women\u2019s golf team as well, remains modest about qualifying.<\/p>\n \u201cI had no idea where I was standing. I didn\u2019t check the leaderboard between the 36 holes that we played \u2026 I told my caddy, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m so tempted to look at the leader board, but I know that it\u2019s not going to help me,\u2019 so she did such a good job helping me stay grounded,\u201d Kim said Wednesday (May 6) from Texas.<\/p>\n She recalled a stretch of three or four holes where she was four under, after she holed her ball on the fourth hole.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was from 170 yards off my four hybrid, and it went straight into the hole. There was no pitch mark. It went right in, so that was fun. So I think for a stretch of three holes I was four under, because I (birdied holes) two and three, and then I holed out on four,\u201d she said, also remembering a 27-foot putt for par on a different hole. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was 430 yards back pin into the wind, and I put myself in the rough in a really terrible position \u2026 but then I made that for par. So, that\u2019s something that kept the momentum going. Everything just worked out that day and (I) had good bounces, and cuts went in.\u201d<\/p>\n While she\u2019s been enjoying her time in Texas, studying business management, her focus right now is one day at a time, and one golf game at a time.<\/p>\n \u201cI just finished up my junior year. We\u2019re still in season actually \u2014 we\u2019re going to our regionals on Friday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The NCAA regionals are set for May 11-13 and, if Kim and her Longhorns teammates make it to nationals, they\u2019ll play in the NCAA national championship, which is scheduled for the end of May in Carlsbad, Calif. <\/p>\n Shortly after that, the 81st U.S. Women\u2019s Open goes June 4-7 at The Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, Calif. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s important for me right now is, literally, the next day. I think preparation is going to be key heading into this couple of weeks of golf,\u201d said Kim. \u201cJust getting prepared (and) making sure I\u2019m well-rested is what I\u2019m focusing on. And then just keeping keep doing what I\u2019m doing \u2026 I don\u2019t really need to make a lot of technical changes. I\u2019ve just got to keep \u2014 like my teammate always says \u2014 chopping wood. That\u2019s the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n When the U.S. Women\u2019s Open is finished, Kim hopes to come home to South Surrey \u2014 where she grew up hitting golf balls at her parent\u2019s Peace Arch Golf Centre driving range \u2014 for at least a couple of weeks, where she always makes a point of visiting local landmarks. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I come home, I always love to drive by Crescent Beach and White Rock Beach because I live so close to them,\u201d she said, adding she\u2019s looking forward to eating \u201csome good home-cooked food by my mom and my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n While she\u2019s trying not to overthink too much about the upcoming U.S. Women\u2019s Open, she hopes she\u2019ll play well.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a big stage and it\u2019s obviously a really big, major championship, but I don\u2019t want to make it bigger than it is, and I just need to know that I belong out there, I belong on that stage and I\u2019m just as good,\u201d Kim said. \u201cI\u2019m going to really focus on shot by shot \u2014 everyone says that, but it I don\u2019t think people realize how difficult it actually is (to focus) on the shot, and really zone in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Surrey golfer makes the cut for U.S. Women\u2019s Open Published 2:00 pm Thursday, May 7, 2026 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,163792,82],"class_list":["post-656727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-lower-mainland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}