As a two-time and defending U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion, Ina Kim-Schaad’s résumé won’t be the only thing that will stick out at this week’s championship at Montclair Golf Club in New Jersey. Kim-Schaad is the undisputed best-dressed woman in golf, known for her signature visor, sunglasses and stylish outfits.
“I, in terms of the person I am on and off the golf course, don’t do well with tons of restrictions in terms of my expressiveness,” Kim-Schaad said. “So the golf fashion is just a way for me to feel like myself and be authentic to who I am.”
Kim-Schaad’s outfits contribute to her enjoyment on the golf course. Fun has been the key word for her since she returned to golf a decade ago after an 11-year break while building a successful career in finance. Spurred by a change in mindset, Kim-Schaad has gone from crying in the middle of a match to winning two U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur titles. She has also transitioned to a career as a mental skills instructor working alongside noted sports psychologist Dr. Gio Valiante.
“Regardless of results I’m just enjoying continuing to learn in this game,” Kim-Schaad said. “I'm trying to enjoy the journey as much as possible and just work as hard as I can while I can.”
“I had always known golf and I was just curious what else was out there. I felt like golf might always be there for me in some capacity.”
Ina Kim-Schaad
Growing up in Los Angeles, Kim-Schaad started playing golf at age 6. It was a family sport, and she often played with her parents and sister, Hana, who’s older than Ina by a year.
In 2000, Kim-Schaad made it to the final of the U.S. Girls’ Junior, where she lost to Lisa Ferrero. But she fondly looks back on another tournament from that year: the AJGA Las Vegas Founders’ Legacy Junior, where she won and Hana shot an 8-under 64 in the final round to set the course and tournament record. Hana received the coveted Oreo Award for shooting the lowest final round.
“It was pretty incredible to be up on the podium together,” Kim-Schaad said. “I won the tournament but she won the Oreo. I was so jealous.”
While Hana had dreams of playing on the LPGA Tour (which she has realized), Ina’s aspirations were different. She didn’t want to make her money on the golf course; she wanted to do it in boardrooms while wearing a business suit.
“I think it was a little bit of the grass is greener on the other side,” Kim-Schaad said. “I had always known golf and I was just curious what else was out there. I felt like golf might always be there for me in some capacity.”
So instead of going to a collegiate golf powerhouse like Stanford, Kim-Schaad chose Northwestern to study communications and business. She played on the golf team and overlapped there with her sister for a year before Hana transferred to UCLA.
When Kim-Schaad graduated in 2005, she put her golf clubs away. For the next eight years, she pursued a career in finance with stops in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London. She would play maybe once a year when invited to an outing.
Still, the interpersonal skills she learned from years of playing golf helped her succeed in the financial world.
“Golf teaches you so many life lessons,” Kim-Schaad said. “You get paired with people who are from totally different places in life and ages in life and have different golf skills than you. You have to play for four [or] five hours and find commonalities and conversation.”
In 2013, everything changed when she met Ian Schaad, her future husband, in an elevator. Ian also worked in finance and remembered Kim-Schaad from a golf outing a few years prior.
Kim-Schaad says meeting Ian was a blessing. When she moved to Hong Kong for work, they maintained a long-distance relationship. And after she transferred to New York in 2015 to be with him, Ian helped reignite her love for golf.
“When we first started playing golf together I was trying to humor him because he loved the game so much,” Kim-Schaad said. “And then I went down the rabbit hole pretty deep. Who would’ve thought that however many years later I’m doing this. He and I get to travel the world playing golf together.”
In 2016, Kim-Schaad took a career break. “My initial plan wasn’t to play mid-am golf, it was just to take a year off and figure out what I wanted to do with my life next,” she said. “During that year I decided to play golf and I never stopped.”
Kim-Schaad won her first tournament back, the 2016 Women’s Met Amateur. But in some ways, that victory was a curse because Kim-Schaad didn’t perform as well in subsequent tournaments.
“As much time as I took off I still had such ridiculously high expectations,” Kim-Schaad said. “And I hadn’t learned how to manage what that meant for me and how that affected my happiness in the game.”
About a year into competing again, her mental struggles came to a head.
“I was in a match-play event and I ended up in a bunker in the middle of the match crying because I was playing so badly,” Kim-Schaad said.
In 2017, she hired Valiante, who has worked with the likes of Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose and Jack Nicklaus. Valiante says Kim-Schaad was making a common mistake: she was playing ego golf.
“As you get good you start getting attention,” Valiante said. “You start getting awards and trophies. A college golfer gets a scholarship. The psychological shift happens where the trophy becomes more important than the game. The fame, the recognition, the status [is prioritized].”
To get away from ego golf, Valiante says golfers must learn to play what he calls mastery golf, which is about playing simply to enjoy the game. Stop thinking about the score. Stop thinking about the match. When Valiante told Kim-Schaad about ego and mastery golf, she understood very quickly, he says.
Winning the 2019 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Forest Highlands Golf Club in Arizona validated Kim-Schaad’s mental shift.
“There’s real gratification in putting in the effort beforehand and knowing that the letting go of the control that week is the thing that’s going to help you unlock all of the work you’ve put in, but that letting go of control is so scary,” Kim-Schaad said. “Once I was able to do it it was a revelation.”
It helped having Ian on the bag.
“We’re really good at not grinding on golf in between shots a lot and then we lock in when we’re in proximity,” Kim-Schaad said. “Having someone you love who can keep your mind off of things in between and have fun conversations with and enjoy being with, that’s been the magic.”
Ian says that balance is crucial.
“You put extreme focus for two minutes while you figure out the club you’re going to hit and the shot you’re going to hit,” he said. “And then you try to get away from that and enjoy life a bit between shots.”
Last year, while wearing a black-and-white outfit that paid tribute to her days in the office, Kim-Schaad won the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, becoming the sixth player to win multiple titles by draining an 18-foot birdie putt on the fifth extra hole against Hanley Long.
Kim-Schaad says she’s still improving, and while she still has things she wants to accomplish in the game, she isn’t going to put too much pressure on herself. She knows those high expectations can be a slippery slope.
She wants to have fun, and now she is teaching others how to do the same as a certified mental skills instructor at Valiante’s Fearless Golf Academy.
“As far as I’m concerned I don’t even have a job because it’s just fun,” Kim-Schaad said. “It is the best to be able to help people make themselves better and see themselves more accurately.”
Valiante calls Kim-Schaad one in a million.
“In just five years she took my entire body of work, reinterpreted it, reinvented it and improved it,” Valiante said. “The student has become the master in that regard.”
Top: Ina Kim-Schaad says fashion allows her to express herself on the golf course.
Darren Carroll, usga