GOYANG-SI, South Korea — David “Yungin” Kim couldn’t wait to get an autograph and meet his favorite player – Minjee Lee – at New Korea Country Club. Hours before, the three-time Grammy award-winning mixing engineer and producer was on the first tee playing the music he’d created for the fifth edition of the Hanwha LifePlus International Crown.
“I haven’t been to a PGA Tour event, but I’ve been to like five LPGA events,” said Kim, who couldn’t say yes fast enough when presented with the opportunity.
“I’m an actual fan.”
Born in Seoul, Kim, 38, grew up in California and moved from Glendale to South Korea six months ago. Three weeks ago, his family welcomed a baby girl, Luna. Kim even worked on the LPGA’s walk-up music while waiting in the hospital for her arrival.
Since moving to Seoul, Kim has played more screen golf than actual golf simply because access to courses isn’t as easy as it was back in Glendale. But this week he enjoyed playing the pro-am on Tuesday with Australia’s Steph Kryiacou and went back out on Thursday to watch her and Lee play the first round of four-ball competition.
“I think when we come to Asia,” said Lee, “a lot more artists and celebrities love golf.”
After an injury sidelined Kim from the football team in high school, he began to reflect on what had been a constant in his life and realized there’d been a soundtrack for every season.
“There was nothing that dictates how I feel as much as music did,” said Kim. “So I just, I tried a couple different things like producing, I even tried to be an artist, and I really fell in love with engineering, the mechanics of sound.
“And then I went the hard route, spending four years, five years as a runner at a big studio in Los Angeles, picking up trash, cleaning toilets. And, you know, been blessed since the stars aligned, and I took the opportunities that were given.”
Kim’s breakthrough moment came in 2015 when the audio engineer was invited to work on Kendrick Lamar’s album “To Pimp a Butterfly,” which went on to win a Grammy. He also won Grammys for his work with rappers Nipsey Hussle and Nas.
For this project, Billboard Korea partnered with IMG and the LPGA to bring Kim on to create eight original team songs, one for each country in the biennial competition. Kim took the role of creating walk-up music for Thursday’s opening session quite seriously, saying he almost shed a tear while making the music for Team Korea.
“I’ve been playing sports my whole life, so I know how important it is for pump-up music,” said Kim. “I had a lot of fun with it. I felt I was a kid again.”
After the interview, it was back to the autograph line for Kim, this time waiting for the chance to meet with world No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul.
