KAHUKU — Joo Mi Kim might be remembered as much for how she celebrated the championship of the SBS Open at Turtle Bay as how she won it yesterday.

She took the year-opening tournament by birdieing the second hole of a sudden-death playoff and, for a moment, the celebration appeared as though it might take on a death-defying element, too.

After initially digging her heels into the green and then dragging them to avoid being tossed into the nearby lake by friends, Kim relented and agreed to jump off the jagged rocks, following her caddie Jay Jang, into the chest-high water as LPGA officials and spectators cringed.

But when your last name is Kim a little individuality to follow a 10-under-par victory doesn't hurt. In fact, it is practically a marketing necessity these days.

Being different takes some doing even for the 2003 Korean Tour rookie of the year and top money winner.

Indeed, in South Korea more than one out of every five people on average — over 10 million in all — have the surname of Kim. Nor is it a whole lot different in the LPGA, where she is the seventh Kim on tour and the fourth to win a tournament.

It has become such a scramble to carve out a niche in the crowded Kim camp that Ju-Yun Kim changed her name to "Birdie."

The 21-year-old Joo Mi, whose name in Chinese character rendition means "beautiful pearl," is the most outgoing and effervescent of the Kim legion, exchanging high-fives with her caddie and waving to photographers throughout her final round.

"I want to be myself; I want to be different," she said.

But to get the TV exposure — the tournament was shown by the sponsoring Seoul Broadcasting System in Korea as well as the Golf Channel — for her dimpled smile and consistent game she needed to do something she had been unable to do in 22 previous LPGA tournaments: win. And to get the headlines and some separation from the rest of the Kims, she needed a bit of flair.

In a tournament where the buildup had been for debuting wunderkinds Morgan Pressel and Ai Miyazato and the army of 20-somethings, Kim set about turning it into her show.

She set the tournament record with a 65 Friday for a share of the second-round lead. Then, she outlasted fellow leaders Becky Iverson and Sung Ah Yim in the same threesome and managed to hold off late challenging Lorena Ochoa and Soo Young Moon in the playoff.

Then came the question of celebrating. After resisting when her friends tried to toss her into the lake, Kim agreed to go along. On a breakout day, call it her much-awaited leap for individuality.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.