Anthony Kim walked out of a PGA Tour scoring trailer at Quail Hollow and straight to the parking lot on May 4, 2012. He put his clubs in the trunk and drove away, vanishing from golf and from public view for 12 years.
Kim was all the way back Sunday in Australia, full of swagger and energy, as he capped off a stunning rally — not just in the final round of LIV Golf Adelaide, but in life. Five shots behind Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, he closed with a 9-under 63 for his first win in nearly 16 years.
[LIV Golf Adelaide: Notes And Quotes From Anthony Kim’s Epic Comeback]
He put on an electric show with leg-kicking, fist-throwing reactions for his four straight birdies before LIV’s largest and loudest gallery of the season.
“I’m too old to be reacting like that because I think I pulled something in my hip,” the 40-year-old Kim said to laughter. “But I will say that was all the lows I went through in my life that I got to dig out of. Every putt that went I felt the struggle, and I was overcoming it. It was therapeutic out there to fight through it and come out on top.”
Those struggles include drug and alcohol addiction so severe Kim considers it a minor miracle he is still alive. He is married with a 4-year-old daughter, Bella, who raced onto the 18th green at The Grange Golf Club and into his arms.
“To be able to share this moment — even though Bella won’t understand it, one day she will — and for her to be able to run on the green and see her dad isn’t a loser was one of the most special moments of my life,” Kim said.
Golf icon Tiger Woods praised Kim’s win while speaking with reporters ahead of The Genesis Invitational.
“To see him struggle in life … and for him to come all the way back and for him to win and to be as devoted as he is to his family, it’s a story in which you just have to wrap your heart around it,” Woods said. “We all struggle in life … but for him to fight through it and for Anthony to get to where he has gotten to from the low that he want in is something that, as I said, you have to just wrap your heart around it.”
LIV Golf took a chance on Kim in 2024 when he played as a wild card, often finishing at the bottom of the small fields. Last season wasn’t much better, though he showed signs of progress — 1% better each day is his motto — late last season.
He was relegated out of the Saudi-funded league. He tied for fifth in the Saudi International. He had to play a qualifying tournament last month just to get another season on the LIV Tour. Perhaps the final boost of confidence: Dustin Johnson signed Kim to his 4 Aces team when Patrick Reed decided to leave the league.
The three-shot victory over Rahm was as big as any moment on LIV, at a time when the league lost two of its bigger names in Brooks Koepka and Reed. All that mattered to Kim was coming full circle.
Playing in black shorts — with black calf-length socks and white shoes — in front of a large crowd on a sunny day at The Grange, Kim caught up to Rahm after nine holes and pulled away. Thousands of spectators followed behind him in the 18th fairway when he capped off his amazing day.
It was his first victory since the 2010 Houston Open, the last of his three titles on the PGA Tour. He had not finished higher than a tie for 22nd on LIV, last week in Saudi Arabia. He won $4 million — he made just over $4.6 million in his best season on the PGA Tour.
Rahm closed with a 71 and DeChambeau shot 74 on a day when the average score was 69.8.
Kim reached as high as No. 6 in the world in 2008, the year he played in his only Ryder Cup at Valhalla and needed only 14 holes to beat Sergio Garcia in singles.
He moves to just outside the top 200 now that LIV gets world ranking points.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
