I'm sure y'all know that Waylon Jennings' song:

"Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys,

Don't let them pick guitars and drive them old trucks.

Let them be doctors and lawyers and such."

Make sure that "such" includes being golfers.

Not only is golf a lifetime sport, it can lead to college scholarships and a chance to travel to places you've never even dreamed of visiting.

Take, for example, former Islander Kimberly Kim, who moved away to Arizona three years ago to devote serious time to her game.

Growing up and playing junior golf on the Big Island, the 16-year-old Kim probably never thought she'd ever see — let alone play — the Old Course at St. Andrews, the ancestral home of golf. Yet this weekend, she's in Scotland, playing that hallowed ground as the youngest member of the eight-player U.S. team in the 35th Curtis Cup Match against Great Britain and Ireland.

Looking at a world map and sticking a pin to say, "Been there, done that," is nothing new for the younger of two daughters of an orchid grower in Pahoa.

Last year, Kim represented the USA in the Junior Solheim Cup in Sweden, topping off a year that included being a semifinalist in the U.S. Women's Amateur, the stroke-play medalist with a championship-tying score of 62 in the U.S. Girls' Junior, and a second straight appearance in the U.S. Women's Open, where she played with defending champion Annika Sorenstam in the first two rounds.

In 2006, when Kim's victory made her the youngest champion in the 108 years of the U.S. Women's Amateur, she traveled to Cape Town, South Africa, for the 22nd Women's World Amateur Team Championship, posting a lower 72-hole score than Duke's Amanda Blumenherst and Jennie Lee, who made up the American team.

Blumenherst, a two-time national collegiate player of the year, and Lee are also on this year's Curtis Cup team along with Stacy Lewis (Arkansas), Alison Walshe (Arizona), Tiffany Joh (UCLA), 18-year-old Mina Harigae and Meghan Bolger, the team's old lady at 29.

Talk about golf and seeing the world: probably no one has had more of a nomadic journey than Walshe, 22, a University of Arizona senior. Born in Galway, Ireland, she grew up in Massachusetts and starred at Boston College in her freshman year before transferring to Tulane. When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and forced the Green Wave to cancel its golf program, Walshe went to Arizona. She has earned all-conference honors at three schools.

The Odyssey that golf provides doesn't end there.

The latest, "have clubs, will travel" jet-set member from Hawai'i is Kyung Kim, who, like Kimberly (no relation), also moved to Arizona to further her golfing career. The 14-year-old Maui native will go to France to play in the Evian Masters Juniors Cup on July 19-20. Kyung Kim, who won the AJGA Heather Farr Classic in March, was selected by the American Junior Golf Association along with Annie Park, Trey Kaahanui and A.J. McInerney.

"I'm very excited. I've never been to Europe," Kyung Kim said by phone from Chandler, Ariz. She said she'll try to qualify for the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links championship and maybe the U.S. Girls' Junior "just to play," even though she wouldn't be able to play in both events because they conflict with the Evian date. "But it's worth it," said Kyung Kim, who hasn't forgotten her roots. She asked if she could credit her first golf coach in Hawai'i, Guy Hashiro: "I want to thank him for everything that he's done for me when I was little till now. I think of him as part of my family."

The two-day junior event in the French Alps will immediately precede the Evian Masters, one of the world's premier professional tournaments, at the Evian Masters Golf Club in Evian les Bains, which Michelle Wie calls perhaps her favorite venue.

Wie — another world traveler, thanks to golf — and Lori Castillo are the only other golfers from Hawai'i to play in the biennial Curtis Cup, co-conducted by the U.S. Golf Association and the British Ladies Golf Union.

Wie, at 14, became the youngest player in Curtis Cup history when she played at the Formby Golf Club in Merseyside, England, in 2004. One of her teammates was Paula Creamer. Castillo played in the 1980 Curtis Cup in Chepstow, Wales, and her teammates included World Golf and LPGA Hall of Fame member Patty Sheehan and Carol Semple Thompson, who's this year's captain. USA won both years with Castillo winning her two foursome matches, while going 0-2 in individual competition, and Wie doing just the opposite, winning both of her singles and losing both team matches.

Kimberly Kim joins them by playing, as they did, in the alternate year when the Curtis Cup is held in Great Britain or Ireland, not in the states. And this year, it's at St. Andrews, which is hosting the Curtis Cup for the first time.

"Kimberly is very excited," said her father, Soo Young Kim.

A change in format should keep the Curtis Cup exciting. There will be three foursome (alternate-shot) and three four-ball (better-ball) matches tomorrow and Saturday, and eight, instead of six, singles matches Sunday. It'll be interesting to see how Thompson will utilize Kim as the USA seeks its sixth straight victory.

I'm sure Kim will have tales to tell about her experiences. First chance I get, though, I'll ask about her new bottle-blonde look.