It’s been a long time coming for Christina Kim. The last time Kim won on the LPGA was nine years ago at something called the Mitchell Company Tournament of Champions.
Heck, plenty of golfers have come and gone in those long nine years and if you listen to the newly crowned Lorena Ochoa Invitational champion Kim will tell you that there’s a big part of her that’s gone and this is the start of her “second act.”
An emotional Kim broke down in tears after her win while hugging her good friend Michelle Wie and again when relating to the Golf Channel’s Jerry Foltz just how much this win meant to her.
Most fans know Kim as the ebullient, out-going, fast talking, golfer who never missed a chance to have a laugh or crack wise. 
She’s called a spade a spade and ruffled some feathers on occasion but we always knew what she was thinking. Or we thought we did.
That was until a 2012 Golf Digest article and a blog post from Kim let the world in on her secret. She had been dealing with, or trying to deal with depression. It was a depression so deep that she actually thought of ending her life.
For an effervescent and successful person like Kim to admit to a battle with depression seemed almost incredible.
How can someone who appeared so happy, so confident and so popular ever succumb to depression?
My first up close encounter with Kim was a classic illustration of the Kim that the public had come to know.
I was at the Sybase Classic and the media dinning was also the players dining. By the way, I have never come across that situation since. So I was grabbing some free food alongside of Juli Inkster and in walks Christina.
As she made her way across the room there wasn’t a person, golfer or otherwise she didn’t hug, kiss, chat with, shake hands with or have a laugh with.
She was a twister of chatter bouncing from one table to the next and even those she didn’t know still got a smile or a wave.
She had always been like that and hearing that she had issues with depression was shocking.
It goes to show you: we never really know what goes on in people’s minds. It’s an evil, painful illness.
Which makes Kim’s comeback in Mexico all the more heartwarming. To be there in the depths and to work her way out of them has to be one of the great stories on the tour this year.
She said that without the support of her friends and family she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this victory. And she used a thought her mother had passed on to her: that even in the darkest times, tomorrow there will be a beautiful sunrise.
Once again she’s a winner on the LPGA Tour and I think there are plenty more beautiful sunrises in her future.
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