Vintage Anthony Kim Wins LIV Golf Adelaide

Few people truly know how Anthony Kim spent the years between the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship and his return to competitive golf in Saudi Arabia in 2024. Rumors abound, but it’s safe to assume Kim traveled to dark places, both physically and mentally. Kim himself has confirmed as much, including after winning LIV Golf Adelaide to cap one of the most dramatic comeback stories professional golf has seen in recent history.

“I'm going to try to leave a lot of details out,” Kim replied when asked what he’ll someday tell his daughter, Bella, about his life. “But I will tell her that before she came into this world that I didn't feel any purpose in my life.”

Though short on specifics, Kim openly acknowledges his battle with drug and alcohol addiction, much of which was waged outside public view. In the decade following his disappearance from the sport, occasional reports of an AK sighting would surface as if he were Bigfoot, accompanied by wistful speculations about a return. But the idea of him competing again always felt more like golf junkie fan fiction than plausible reality. A return was made especially improbable against the backdrop of a lucrative insurance policy that reportedly would’ve cost him millions of dollars the moment he stepped back between the ropes.

Then came the official announcement two years ago: After a 12-year hiatus marked by surgeries and rehab, Kim would be joining LIV Golf for the 2024 season. His highly anticipated debut in Saudi Arabia went about as well as should be expected for someone who had spent more than a decade away from the sport. He finished dead-last with rounds of 76-76-74, 11 shots behind the next closest competitor. The next 18 months weren’t much kinder to Kim, who became a fixture of the bottom of LIV leaderboards that are not known for their depth. Without a finish better than T-25, he was eventually relegated from the league.

Kim then began to flash some form. He claimed the third and final qualifying spot at LIV’s Promotions Event in January, earning his way back onto LIV’s roster. A forgettable T-22 at the season-opener in Riyadh followed last week. And then, this past weekend, what had long felt impossible became real.

Kim began Sunday’s round in Australia five shots behind Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. A tidy 4-under front nine, coupled with uninspiring performances from Rahm and DeChambeau, turned a distant hope into a legitimate chance. By the turn, Kim trailed Rahm by just one shot. Then, in vintage AK fashion, he peeled off four straight birdies from Nos. 12 and 15, pumping his fist emphatically as each mid-range putt disappeared directly into the center of the cup.

A lot has changed since Kim made a record 11 birdies at Augusta National in the second round of the 2009 Masters. Tattoos now cover his left arm and part of his right calf. His golf swing looks different. His face looks a lot different. But as AK fist-pumped his way around the back nine at the Grange Golf Club, there was no mistaking the player. He carried the same electricity of the guy who had once reached world No. 6 and beaten the snot out of Sergio Garcia at the 2008 Ryder Cup. Form may come and go, but swagger is permanent.

Another birdie on 17 all but sealed Kim’s fairy tale comeback, as social media lit up with fans affixed to the action despite it unfolding in the middle of the night in America. AK sauntered up the 18th fairway, allowing himself to soak in a scene that had been unfathomable for the better part of the last 15 years. Nearly 6,000 days removed from his last victory at the 2010 Shell Houston Open, Kim had won once again.

The line between self-belief and delusion is thin, often indistinguishable. The path to the top of the sport, though, requires a healthy measure of both. “Nobody else has to believe in me but me,” Kim said after the win, a simple but powerful reflection.

The ending to Kim’s story remains unwritten, but when you’ve been both as high and as low as Kim has been, why wouldn’t you believe there’s more mountain left to climb?

“Nothing is holding me back. I just have to keep working. The one-percent-better-every-day thing is a mindset that I'm going to carry with me until the day I die. I don't see why I can't make it to the top again.”

Rarely in sport does a comeback meet the expectations placed upon it. For four days in Adelaide, Kim proved that he still has the fire, the belief, and the game to stand toe-to-toe with some of the best golfers in the world – a remarkable feat for a 40-year-old who was away from the game for more than a decade, battling demons and emerging intact on the other side.

Odds and Ends

Anthony Kim may have stolen much of the spotlight over the weekend, but he was not the only notable development. A quick four-pack of notes from the action on the Monterey Peninsula:

Course Setup: Setting up Pebble Beach in 2026 is a challenging endeavor, especially when trying to accommodate both elite pro golfers and amateurs of mixed abilities. For the first two days of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, greens stimped around 12, per PGA Tour Rules staff on PGA Tour Live. With higher winds on the weekends, greens were slowed to about 10.5 on Saturday and down closer to 10 for Sunday. When winds touched approximately 30 mph, balls oscillated on the greens both on Saturday and Sunday.

Rough will be maintained much thicker at the 2027 U.S. Open than at this weekend’s pro-am, but green speeds are a delicate balancing act, especially with fickle wind intensity. The above numbers should offer a useful reference point once the U.S. Open rolls around next June.

Course Setup, Part II: Without significant wind and with the customarily low rough heights at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the only real challenge for players is managing their spin on the soft, receptive greens. Accordingly, shots out of the mild rough are often just as easy, sometimes even easier, than shots from the fairway, a big part of why driving accuracy isn’t particularly important at this tournament.

Thicker rough and firmer June conditions drastically alter the challenge for U.S. Opens hosted at Pebble. Does the golf course stand up well to the modern game even in June? No, but it’s at least more of a challenge than what we saw for 2.5 days at this week’s pro-am before conditions rolled in.

Collin Morikawa: Is he back? Morikawa claimed his seventh PGA Tour win on Sunday at Pebble Beach, his first victory since the 2023 Zozo Championship. He led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach, winning the tournament by one shot despite losing strokes on the greens. He also announced that he and his wife are expecting their first child.

Scottie Scheffler: The world No. 1 recovered brilliantly after a poor opening round 72 that placed him T-64 through. He stormed up the leaderboard on Sunday, carding three eagles and six birdies to finish T-4 and extend his top-10 streak to a staggering 18 in a row.