The 42-year-old twins and MRI technicians, Se Youn “Steve” Kim and Hee Young “Ted” Kim, allegedly reserved thousands of tee times at golf courses in Los Angeles and Orange counties, then resold them to the public for a fee, according to prosecutors. The money from their tee time business was deposited into their personal financial accounts even after they formed a corporate entity. And now they’ve pleaded guilty to deliberately failing to report more than $1.3 million in income, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
“It’s not like I’m taking advantage of technology,” Ted Kim told the Los Angeles Times in 2024. “I’m booking myself. I’m not doing anything illegal.” Kim also said that at the time he was making a couple of thousand dollars a month as a broker.
From 2021 to 2023 alone, Steve Kim received approximately $810,919 in income. And in 2021, he omitted approximately $27,510 in income he earned from the tee-time brokering business. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “neither brother ever reported to the IRS any income from their tee time business, and both admitted to using some of the funds in this corporate account to pay for personal expenses and make cash withdrawals.”
The Kims are set to appear in court for sentencing hearings on January 12, 2027, after an examination by the IRS Criminal Investigation division. Steve Kim will face a statutory maximum sentence of three years in federal prison, and Ted Kim will face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
Just this week, partially because of the Kims and similar resellers, California Governor Gavin Newsom “signed a bill that prohibits third-party brokers from advertising, selling or transferring tee-time reservations at publicly owned golf courses without the written consent of the course operator.”
This has been a scourge across California for quite some time but was brought to the forefront in 2024 when L.A. teaching pro Dave Fink started the #FreeTheTee movement. Fink and many others were furious over surge pricing and needed to fight back against the third-party buyers.
“This is a public good,” said Patrick MacFarlane, who serves on the L.A. golf advisory committee. “It’d be like if someone took over a public swimming pool and said there would be surge pricing.”
The “PAR” Act (Protecting Access to Reservations), also known as Assembly Bill 1954, is the first bill the California Alliance for Golf has sponsored. It will be enforced through civil action under the Unfair Competition Law.
“Public golf courses belong to the public,” said state assembly member Chris Ward, who authored the bill. “And residents shouldn’t have to compete with brokers buying up tee times just to turn around and sell them at inflated prices.”