Danielle Kang played the final round of the ANA Inspiration on Sunday at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage with a security detail after receiving a face-to-face death threat from two men at a restaurant the night before, according to several media reports.
The 22-year-old Kang, who was born in San Francisco and grew up in Southern California before playing at Oak Park High, Westlake High and Pepperdine, shot 5-over-par 77 in round three and finished with a 67 that left her in a tie for 26th.
“I was actually scared for my life,” Kang said of the incident, which occurred as she was eating dinner with her mother and a friend at Midori Restaurant in Rancho Mirage following the third round on Saturday. “They kept making remarks after remarks. We just didn’t acknowledge it.
“He says: ‘I’m going to f—— kill you. It’s not my fault you played like s—, you stupid b—. I could slap you. I don’t care who the f— you are.’ At this point, the guy is standing over me and my mom.
“I’m like ‘Is this happening? What’s going on?’ I am kind of thinking I’m going to be stabbed if this guy has a knife. Nobody (in the restaurant) did anything. He was shouting. Everyone stopped eating.'”
Kang, who captured the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship in 2010 and 2011, said the men told her they would wait for her outside and that “We’re going to beat the s— out of you.”
She called the police with the men watching her through the window, but when Riverside County Sheriff’s Department officers arrived, the men were gone.
However, Kang retrieved the name of one of the men from the credit card he left at the restaurant and gave it to the deputies, and the Sheriff’s Department said it was investigating the matter.
