Australia’s Grace Kim wins play-off thriller at Evian Championship to clinch first major triumph

Australia’s Grace Kim produced a sensational finish to win the Evian Championship as she beat world number two Jeeno Thitikul in a play-off for her first major title.

For as long as anyone can remember, Grace Kim has always worn a pin for a man she never met. It takes a special kind of person to honour someone’s legacy like that, and she’s always believed in the Jarrod Lyle story.

Lyle had a smile which could light up a small town. Australian golf fans laughed with him, they cried with him when he was diagnosed with cancer and he kept coming back to play, they mourned him when his battle came to an end. He was just 36.

As she fidgeted through her winning press conference after a major championship won in the dead of the Australian night, and frankly one no one saw coming, she grabbed for the little yellow Leuk The Duck pin.

It’s the mascot for the Challenge charity which raises money for kids with cancer. At first, Kim grabbed for the wrong side of her hat, then quickly realised it was on the other.

“I forgot to wear it the first three days and I just remembered to put it on before I teed off (in the final round),” Kim says after her stunning Evian Championship win in France. “I’m glad I did.

“I didn’t get a chance to meet Jarrod Lyle, but just to be representing Australia, as well as his foundation, shows the camaraderie of all Aussies, what he’s done and the inspiration he’s left behind.”

Grace Kim kisses The Amundi Evian Championship 2025 trophy after winning her first major. Picture: Getty Images

Kim was only 17 when Lyle died, but for some reason his story resonated with her.

“She puts other people first,” says Kim’s coach Khan Pullen. “She always has. That’s one of her greatest strengths as a person, and sometimes as a player you feel you might need that competitive hardness. That’s just her. She’s never going to change that.

“She’s just a wonderful human being. She’s a very talented golfer, but she’s a better person than she is a golfer.”

That’s saying something, because if you only watched the final hour of the Evian Championship, you would have been forgiven for thinking there’s no one better on the planet with a golf club in hand.

Kim won on the second play-off hole, making a sequence of unbelievable shots, sealing consecutive women’s major wins for Australia after Minjee Lee’s success in the KPMG PGA Championship (Lee finished one shot behind Kim in tied-third on Monday morning AEST).

Grace Kim looked like the best golfer on the planet as she stormed to victory. Picture: Getty Images

Kim finished with eagle-birdie-eagle to down Thailand’s world No.2 Jeeno Thitikul by two shots. She almost fluked an albatross on the last hole in regulation, somehow sunk a miracle chip-in for birdie after a water ball on the first play-off hole, and then made eagle again on the second extra hole.

Before the play-off, Kim stood beside the green with her arm around Thitikul like long lost friends. Golfers have many ways to beat their rivals. Kim only knows one way: with kindness.

“We were watching and after they hit her tee shots in regulation, she was walking talking to Jeeno and I was (thinking), ‘sometimes she’s got to be a little bit meaner’,” says Australian golfing legend Karrie Webb. ”She definitely has that grit, but she’s such a lovely kid.”

If anyone knows, it should be Webb.

The path to being a major champion and winner of Webb’s scholarship four years in a row was made for Kim at a young age.

Grace Kim reacts after putting a birdie to win the The Amundi Evian Championship. Picture: Getty Images

Grace Kim is sprayed with champagne as she celebrates her victory. Picture: Getty Images

Kim is the daughter of Korean migrants who raised a family in Sydney. Her parents, Kevin and Jane, ran a small cleaning business. At first, she hated going with her dad to the driving range. One day, something clicked. The better she got, the longer the hours her parents worked to support her. Kim would notice them getting tired driving her to golf sessions all around Sydney after their shifts had finished.

By the time she was doing her HSC, she was representing Australia at the Youth Olympics. She had to sit an English exam in Buenos Aires, which said students must stay for at least an hour. As the clock ticked past 60 minutes, Kim upped and handed in a half-completed paper. School was out.

“She was pretty all in with her golf,” Pullen says.

“Once she decided what she wanted, she had this incredible work ethic. She was a great student, would always listen and was extremely coachable.”

Webb saw it too, so much so she kept having Kim to the United States as her scholarship winner.

The last time, Webb took her on a road trip to play some of the most prestigious courses in America: Pine Valley, Winged Foot, Westchester Country Club. They even shared a hotel room. “It was a memory money can’t buy,” Kim says.

Grace Kim is the second straight Australian to win a women’s golfing major. Picture: Getty Images

For the past 18 months, Pullen and Kim’s conditioning team have desperately sought what everyone is chasing in the modern game: power and distance. They also made a pact that Kim, one of the most relentless workers in the game, would play less tournaments too.

As a result, Kim, 24, has spent more time in the gym, and unlike traditional warm-up methods, walks onto a practice range and goes full throttle with a driver first, rather than working her way through her bag from wedges up. She’s added more speed and length off the tee.

“My idea is you should be physically ready when you come out to the range with your natural swing at full speed,” Pullen says. “Particularly if her warm up wasn’t going well, she would tend to slow down and get a bit steery in her swing. I wanted her at full speed. That’s kind of been the strategy.”

For the first three days of the Evian Championship, Kim battled an illness she felt she couldn’t shake. As she spluttered over her playing partners, she kept apologising, chasing around her little white golf ball with a picture of an avocado on it as a tribute to her favourite food.

As the avocado rolled in to the hole to cement her place in Australian golfing history, no one was smiling more than the man watching from the 19th hole in the sky, the one she was wearing the little yellow pin for.

Maybe good things do happen to good people.

Originally published as Australia’s Grace Kim wins play-off thriller at Evian Championship to clinch first major triumph