PGATOUR.COM: When did you figure out you'd make a better golfer than basketball player?
Anthony Kim: When I was in the 10th grade, I hurt my ankle pretty bad. I rolled it twice in the same week, and my mom and dad told me to look in the mirror and see what I thought I could do as a profession, and that was it. No more basketball after that. Being 5-foot-9 on a good day, I had a pretty good idea I wasn't going to play basketball for a living.
PGATOUR.COM: You played a lot as a kid growing up in Southern California, though.
AK: I was going to play [for my high school] when we moved to La Quinta, but then I got hurt and my parents were pretty strict about it after that, about not playing basketball.
PGATOUR.COM: What kind of player would you be if you never gave it up? Obviously you'd be a guard since there aren't too many 5-9 power forwards.
AK: Ever since I played soccer [as a kid], I was always the fastest guy on court. Always. Then I went and played tennis a couple times, and it was embarrassing how slow I was. But I was always small, so I had to have more energy than everyone else and go faster than everyone else.
PGATOUR.COM: The injury didn't squash your love for the game, though. How'd you become a Lakers fan?
AK: Born and raised in L.A., man. My parents owned a business at Sixth and Kingsley, and they worked from 8 in the morning until 8 at night seven days a week, and there was a little TV in there, so every time I came back from playing basketball at the park or wherever, the Lakers were on.
PGATOUR.COM: Not a Clippers fan?
AK: No way, man. Even though my boy B.G. (Blake Griffin) plays for them now, I'm still a Lakers fan. Blake and I both went to Oklahoma, and my strength and conditioning coach, Darby Rich, used to be the strength and conditioning coach for the men's basketball team and trained Blake when he was there.
PGATOUR.COM: You ever play against Blake?
AK: I don't even fool around with Blake. How am I going to mess with him on the court? That would be like him trying to mess with me on the golf course. But I always played with other guys from the OU team, and I was probably the only guy from the golf team to do that. It was good because it was competitive, and it's good to try stuff you don't always practice. And I love to talk trash.
