Anthony Kim Is No Golf Savior

As a millennial of a certain age, the sentimental part of me wants to watch Anthony Kim play golf again.

Kim, now 38 years old, once captivated the golf world—particularly my generation—with his play and personality in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

For me, the fascination with Kim can be explained in one moment. After he won the AT&T National in 2008, Kim was signing autographs when he was handed a flip phone. Tournament host Tiger Woods was on the other line.

“T-Dub, what’s up?” Kim said without breaking stride in his autograph signing.

The man called A.K. oozed charisma like that in a time period when golf was short on stars. This was before the prime of Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and other luminaries. When Kim won that event nearly 16 years ago, the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking read: Woods, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Stewart Cink, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, Steve Stricker, Justin Rose and Vijay Singh.

Some tremendous Hall of Fame-worthy players but not a lot of flash. Not a lot of personality that fans could get behind.

Kim was someone fans could get behind. He wore blinged-out belt buckles. His game was aggressive. He came off a little brash and cocky.

To steal an expression, Kim was known to borrow a little too much happiness from tomorrow. He admitted to partying hard, squeezing what he could out of his celebrity.

And then, at the young age of 26, he was gone. Kim had been struggling with injury and his game spiraled. He shot a 74 in the opening round of the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship and then withdrew—it was the last round of competitive golf we’ve seen him play.

Kim disappeared, becoming a “golf yeti” as he mostly avoided the spotlight. Reports circulated that his competitive career was possibly over and he intended on cashing in on an insurance policy.

But that could all change. It has been reported that Kim is mulling a return to professional golf—the rumor mill is suggesting that he could sign on with LIV and begin play next month. The league would, in theory, pay the value of the insurance policy and then some to get Kim.

LIV is desperate to move the needle. Last weekend, PGA Tour TV ratings for the third round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am were 1.95 million. On the same day, LIV only had 168,000 viewers. A day later, when weather washed out play at Pebble, LIV rose to 432,000 viewers—a bump but not a meaningful one when you consider that many only tuned in because watching the PGA Tour’s best was not an option.

Would Kim—and all the fascination he brings—give LIV a meaningful boost in popularity?

Like a Tarantino movie, I will skip to the end and then work my way back: Kim could be the single best reason for a casual golf fan to tune in but the novelty of his return would probably be short-lived.

The Legend of Anthony Kim

Kim has all the makings of a folk hero.

His amateur career was stellar. Kim set the University of Oklahoma career scoring record, won the prestigious Northeast Amateur in 2004 and went 2-1 for the Americans in a victorious 2005 Walker Cup.

At a time when PGA Tour rookies (at least those not named Tiger Woods) often had to struggle for years before finding their footing, Kim came out swinging. He finished tied for second in his debut, nearly winning the 2006 Valero Texas Open. Kim got through Q-School that fall—less than two years later, he was a top 20 player in the world. 

Kim won the 2008 Wachovia Championship by five shots, setting a tournament scoring record. Two months later, he won the AT&T National and got that call from Woods. Kim became the first American under the age of 25 to win twice in one year on the PGA Tour since Woods in 2000. By the end of the summer, he was up to No. 6 in the world.

That September, at just 23, Kim qualified for the Ryder Cup team. The other seven automatic qualifiers for the American side were between the ages of 31 and 48. Kim was a burst of youth and enthusiasm, playing a critical role on that winning team. He paired with Mickelson three times (going 1-1-1) and then beat Sergio Garcia, 5 and 4, in the opening singles match on Sunday. Afterwards, he paraded around in an American flag.

That was arguably the height of A.K. mania. He was a young, flashy American of Korean descent storming into an old man’s game with a certain bravado. Kim wasn’t Tiger but there was some overlap in their magnetism.

He didn’t win the following year, but his legend grew. He made 11 birdies during the second round of the 2009 Masters, notching a record that still stands. And in that fall’s Presidents Cup, Kim went 3-1.

Although he finished third in the 2010 Masters and captured his third PGA Tour victory at the Shell Houston Open, Kim’s slide had started. He struggled with injury the rest of that year and fell to No. 31 in the OWGR. He missed 11 cuts in 2011 and that was essentially the beginning of the end. By early 2012, he fell outside the top 100 in the world.

The week of the Wells Fargo Championship—the same event he had won four years earlier—Kim expressed optimism in his press conference.

“This was the start of my career,” Kim said. “Hopefully, I can start a new one here.”

But he withdrew from that event and had surgery to repair the injured achilles tendon in his left leg. It was going to require a lengthy rehab process and the use of a major medical exemption in 2013, but instead of coming back, Kim vanished.

Just two years later, it was reported that Kim no longer played golf of any sort. That would change over the ensuing years as the occasional swing video surfaced, but Kim mostly went into the darkness. In a rare interview with the Associated Press in 2015, Kim conceded he had endured “six or seven surgeries” between 2012 and 2015. He listed labrum, spinal fusion, rotator cuff and hand surgeries as among what he had to deal with at the time. He called golf “a fond memory,” which seemed to indicate his best playing days were well behind him.

In that interview, Kim explained that he took out an insurance policy in 2011, providing him income if he was unable to play golf again. It was reported to be worth somewhere between $10 million and $20 million.

”I paid well into the mid-six figures for the policy,” Kim said. ”They wouldn’t have paid me every month had I not been to the doctors, showing them all my X-rays, doing all the treatment, the acupuncture, twice a day for physical therapy.”

A lot of time passed. Kim would play charity events or have chance meetings with fans but he mostly kept to himself. That decision runs counter to everything we know about golf: namely that golfers can be successful well into their 40s or 50s, and there is rarely a true full-on retirement from the game. It also ran counter to his personality.

There have always been rumors of a comeback. Now it (allegedly) might happen.

The Power of Nostalgia

The mystery and intrigue around Anthony Kim is a fascinating study in nostalgia.

Kim was a good player, a three-time Tour winner who had a nice stretch of golf over a few years. He was captivating, charming and edgy, a cult classic of a golfer. He played with joy and a child-like love for golf. It is easy to understand why he possessed a certain gravitational pull.

He did all of this well before X (Twitter) reached its peak in popularity. You can go back and watch highlights but the memory of Anthony Kim is better than the reality.

Kim only registered three top-10 major finishes. He struggled with driver yips—in his last full Tour season, Kim ranked No. 171 in Strokes Gained off the tee. He had been a phenomenal driver of the ball in 2007 and 2008 but regressed over time, likely due to injury. He was not known for his work ethic, even in healthy times.

He was a certifiable world-beater for one season (2008) when he ranked No. 3 in total Strokes Gained. Kim was never inside the top 30 for the stat in any other season.

A good player. A memorable player. But not a great player. Not a superstar.

In today’s world, he is akin to Tom Kim. Someone who has tons of talent and an interesting profile but isn’t in the same conversation as the elite tier of pro golfers.

Memory is funny. In the same way your feelings of college might be skewed—it was a non-stop, completely carefree party with no stressing over homework, right?—the feelings around A.K. are probably much the same.

The Reality of the Comeback

There are two sides of the possible Anthony Kim comeback.

Let’s start from Kim’s perspective. If the goal is to play great golf, this is going to be an excruciating challenge. He is 38 years old and a dozen years removed from meaningful competition. That is nearly one-third of his life.

Any Tour player will tell you that shooting 63 during a casual round at your home course has little relationship to playing well in a big-time tournament.

If he does come back, the most likely outcome is that he will struggle. For that reason, it would make more sense for him to chase a guaranteed payday on LIV rather than trying to earn his way back on the PGA Tour—although as a golf fan, watching Kim attempt to get back on Tour the old-fashioned way would be must-watch TV.

Still, from a LIV or PGA Tour perspective, a Kim comeback feels like fool’s gold.

If it’s LIV, there could be a short-term bump in interest. I would rank him as my top reason for being interested. A ton of people want to know what his game looks like and how he carries himself on the course. It would be cool to see him get involved in social media, which wasn’t booming during his heyday. Maybe his personality is additive to the game.

At the same time, the novelty of Kim coming back could erode quickly. It would also feel purely transactional for him to take this money and compete in what is basically exhibition golf. Does he only want the money or is this about getting to play tournament golf again? Will he be going through the motions or leaning hard into the entertainment side like he once did?

His rumored LIV debut could be in Saudi Arabia and then Hong Kong the following week. Most American viewers won’t be watching live. LIV does return to the U.S. in April for its Miami event, so that could spark some fan interest.

If he somehow plays well, it might be a meaningful boost. There is the potential for fans to watch all of his shots live or on-demand. But if he doesn’t play well, it’s hard to imagine intrigue would remain high.

The thought of Kim slogging through LIV’s Houston or Nashville events, in the unrelenting heat of summer, while shooting 75… is something no golf fan should want to see.

LIV’s Battle for Attention

A Kim comeback with LIV would further expose the one area of the circuit that really saps interest: there are no stakes.

Virtually everyone involved is guaranteed to stay with LIV regardless of how they play. It’s a money funnel, an invitational. That is the primary reason there are no world ranking points to be had. 

For all of the PGA Tour’s warts, it still has a system where players can earn their way into signature events. There is qualifying. There is a substantial reservoir of history around venues and tournaments. There is more context.

And the PGA Tour still has the better players, by a wide margin. Only three of the top 25 golfers in the Data Golf ranking play on LIV. Of the top 100 Data Golf players, there are 71 PGA Tour players and only 17 LIV players. Those rankings account for all golf played everywhere.

LIV recently brought in Tyrrell Hatton and reportedly came close to signing reigning U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark. However, it will take a lot more than that to tip the scales.

Anthony Kim could help—and it might be a gamble worth making—but he’s no savior. 

We’re still wondering where pro golf goes from here. The PGA Tour is in negotiations to partner with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which backs LIV. There are a lot of hurdles and complicating factors in that partnership, including a recent private equity investment the PGA Tour received from Strategic Sports Group.

One thing we know is this current version of the golf world doesn’t make sense. Golf isn’t big enough to have players split into two different tours. There needs to be some cohesion. How we get there is still a mystery, much like Kim.

Do you think Anthony Kim will move the needle if he returns? Are you interested in watching him play again?

Let me know below in the comments.

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