Why an old hat brings tears to LPGA's Kang

BEDMINSTER, N.J. - Danielle Kang was the last player on the course Wednesday evening, chipping a line of golf balls onto the 18th green as the sun ducked behind a crowd of clouds.

As she fished a new club out of her bag, an unfamiliar man slowly walked onto the course and handed her a worn black hat with a letter inside. Kang tried to give the hat back to him and continue taking practice shots. Then he started to explain.

The hat once belonged to Kang's father, K.S., who died from brain cancer four years ago. K.S. caddied for Kang as she won the 2011 U.S. Women's Amateur Championship at Rhode Island Country Club. This man, Dave Moriarty, volunteered at that event and walked 31 holes with Kang and her father before Kang secured the victory.

Moriarty had since followed Kang closely, from the trying start of her professional career, to her first LPGA win less than two weeks ago at Olympia Fields, and now to the U.S. Women's Open at Trump National Golf Club, where he is a volunteer again this week. Before they parted six years ago, Moriarty asked K.S. if they could swap hats after K.S.' daughter won her second consecutive amateur championship.

K.S. said no, they couldn't trade, but Moriarty could have his. So Moriarty returned the hat with a heartfelt letter Wednesday, and Kang broke a personal rule: She cried on the golf course.

"I don't cry a lot, at least not in public," Kang said after walking off the course. "People always say, 'You're so happy, you're so happy all the time.' I am. But I also carry a lot of pain. You can't avoid that.

"But that was great. That was just another person my dad touched and connected with, and another way for us to remember him."

That perception of the 24-year-old Kang - always bubbly, never without a smile - was put in the national spotlight earlier this month. The PGA Women's Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club ended with two milestones: Her first professional win in 144 starts and her first major victory. She got emotional as soon as her tournament-winning birdie putt rolled in, and tears flowed throughout hugs with her caddie and mother, the trophy presentation and the news conference that followed.

That kind of win, on one of golf's biggest stages against golf's best competition, seemed imminent when the California native broke onto the professional scene in 2011. She had won the two amateur championships and first qualified for a U.S. Women's Open at 13 years old. She was ready to climb the ladder, and then she stopped enjoying the game.

K.S., her caddie and confidant, died six months after he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2013. He was 52. Kang had trouble with injuries after losing her father and missed seven cuts that year.

"I definitely slacked a little bit after for a couple of years," said Kang, who has her dad's name tattooed in Korean on her right hand. "But I just got back into it and just chipped, kept on going at it."

To restart, and to recapture all that made golf both fun and conquerable, Kang remembered old conversations with her father.

He never forced her to practice. He was never mad when she missed a shot. He always listened to her vent in the car about her game and always responded the same way.

"'Well, let's fix it then,'" Kang said Wednesday, and she lowered her voice to mimic his. "'If you're not driving well, let's drive. If you're not putting well, let's putt.' It was simple, really. But it was also the kind of thing you needed a parent to tell you. He always had the answers like that. Golf was always how we connected."

Kang loves everything that came from her win in Illinois: bigger crowds following her this week, the burden being lifted off her shoulders, the messages from her dad's old friends about how proud he would have been. But she also can't wait to line up her first drive just before 1 p.m. on Thursday and use the U.S. Women's Open to build on her recent success.

Everything is quiet on the course. The only direction she can be pulled in is toward her next shot. All she has to do is play golf, and golf is enjoyable again.

"It's going to be huge. I think it just opened up the floodgates," Michelle Wie, one of Kang's best friends, said Tuesday of Kang's first win. "I've always known that she had it in there. I know the feeling. I was talking to her earlier this year, and she was kind of down. First win in 144 events, you have your doubts about yourself. You have doubts if it will ever happen."

As the grounds crew started to prep the course for the first round, Kang stood with Moriarty and read the letter he typed out to her.

Moriarty had assumed, until earlier this year, that K.S. was still Kang's caddie. When he heard about K.S.'s death on a recent broadcast, he knew he had to find Kang before the tournament in Bedminster. He had to give her the hat.

"I am trying to see if I can still smell my husband," said Grace Lee, Kang's mother, holding the black hat to her nose. "I think this man has probably washed it a few times since 2011."

"Mom," Kang said, her eyes red from the tears. "We already have so many of his hats."

But that's all right, she added. There is room for one more.