I Was Wrong About Anthony Kim

A couple of years ago when Anthony Kim was invited to play on LIV, I wrote a column about how he would be “no golf savior” for the league.

“If the goal is to play great golf, this is going to be an excruciating challenge,” I wrote. “If he does come back, the most likely outcome is that he will struggle… a Kim comeback feels like fool’s gold.”

For a couple of seasons, that take was correct. Kim was uncompetitive and couldn’t even keep his spot in a league where the relegation concept has been nebulous at best.

That slow bleed of Kim fading from any remaining spotlight was predictable and, quite frankly, expected.

I mean, the guy hadn’t played any meaningful golf in 12 years. He hadn’t been competitive at the highest level in 14 years.

In between, he borrowed a lot of happiness from the future. He was a Johnny Manziel figure—if the Heisman-winning quarterback had disappeared off the face of the earth for a decade during the height of the social media age.

Kim’s return was supposed to be, let’s just say it, a little pathetic with questionable motivations.

And if you’ve ever had the displeasure of scrolling through his Twitter feed, he wasn’t exactly offering a lot of non-golf reasons to still be invested in his journey.

But winning has a way of reshaping everyone’s perspective.

Kim qualified his way back onto LIV the hard way (earning the third and final spot). He finished T22 at LIV Riyadh but flashed a few highlights under the lights. Innocuous enough.

And then, out of the blue, a bursting ray of sunlight coming out of clouds that were unchanged as an oil painting for some 16 years dating back to his last point of relevancy.

Kim took down the big boys

LIV Adelaide is the best event on the LIV calendar. It breathes life into golf-starved Australia. The crowds are fantastic and the golf course is probably the best they play all season.

LIV hit the jackpot when their two biggest stars, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, battled for the lead through 54 holes.

Normally, that length is an entire tournament on LIV. The league changed its rules for this season, extending events to 72 holes.

There were 18 more holes for something interesting to happen, and it did.

Kim, charging from five strokes back, shot a 9-under 63 and zoomed past Rahm and DeChambeau.

Rahm, LIV’s $300 million man, still has never won a LIV event and has been M.I.A. in majors since switching to the league.

LIV’s shining moment—easily the most memorable in five seasons of play—came from the guy who had to qualify his into the field.

There is probably a lesson here. You can pay stars a lot of money but golf fans want to watch players who genuinely care.

Love him or hate him, Kim genuinely cares. He showed it with passionate, charismatic play. He really, really wanted to win this golf tournament.

And if there were more LIV players who felt the same, it would be a much different product.

One of the best comebacks in golf history?

People were getting out over their skis with comparing Kim’s comeback to the likes of Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods.

Woah, Nelly.

Cat won the Masters after being written off dozens of times. Hogan dominated at the highest level after nearly dying in a car wreck.

Kim won a 57-man invitational. The win got him to No. 200 in the world.

Let’s keep some perspective here.

However, it is absolutely banana-lands that Kim had a successful yet brief PGA Tour career, disappeared like the goddamn Loch Ness Monster for a decade, reappeared to play two completely forgettable seasons on LIV, lost his LIV status (which is tough to do), gained his LIV status back at the age of 40, then seemingly hopped in a time machine to beat two of the game’s top players with brilliant play.

This is golf. Players vanish all the time. The slightest injury or a planted seed of mental warfare and guys are teleported to managing mutual funds and scamming their way into the U.S. Mid-Am.

Kim doing this is downright bizarre, stunning and inspirational. It shows his immense talent and drive.

It’s anything from sad now. He got in the lab and excavated his talented past out of the dirt.

If the comeback goes further—could he qualify for or even contend in a major?—it will be in the neighborhood of the moribund Indiana Hoosiers magically fielding a 16-0 college football team demolishing traditional powers left and right.

Depending on your perspective, it might even be better. Kim had blown a lot more than his golf game.

He’s taken a totaled Mercedes and raced it past fully-charged Lamborghinis.

Time to eat some crow

I was wrong about Anthony Kim.

The “fool’s gold” is real gold—both for him and for LIV.

He dunked on me. He dunked on everyone.

And while we’re here, let’s give a round of applause for the LIV’ers (bots or human). This was a phenomenal golf tournament. It validated parts of the LIV concept. Opening up bigger qualifying paths (which Kim utilized), going to 72 holes and gaining access to the OWGR are all a part of that, though it’s far from perfect.

I give LIV a ton of shit. Not here. This shut me up for a moment. Good job, LIV.

Now, there is a real possibility this gold is a one-time thing for both parties. Kim hasn’t exactly been tearing it up on LIV. And LIV needed more than four seasons to put together a meaningful tournament the masses were interested in watching.

General feelings about LIV remain mostly unchanged. We have a large sample size of a mediocre product.

Feelings about Kim? They are definitely changed. He has my respect for putting in the work and climbing this little mountaintop few believed he could scale. If he scales a bigger one, I will be glued to my TV.

He’s immediately a top five compelling character among active players. We need a guy like him, because that roster is pretty light at the moment.

Good for you, man. I’m glad as hell I was wrong about you.