Anthony Kim’s return to the winner’s podium after 16 years is a redemption story

It took almost 16 years, or 5,795 days to be precise, between professional golf tournament wins for 40-year-old American Anthony Kim.

The bulk of those years between victories at the 2010 Houston Open on the PGA Tour and Sunday’s LIV Golf Adelaide tournament – are still a mystery to outsiders. Many of those days might even be alien to Kim as his life unravelled in a haze of addiction.

The teenage prodigy, who finished second on his debut tournament on the PGA as a 20-year-old behind Tiger Woods, won three times on tour between 2008-2012 and then disappeared, seemingly overnight.

He became known as the “the yeti of golf”. There were sightings, but no one was sure if he really existed.

Kim’s decline started with a series of injuries – a thumb, an Achilles tendon, a rotator cuff. He withdrew from three consecutive tournaments in 2012, and never came back.

‘No big goodbye’

There was no retirement announcement, no big goodbye to a 24-year-old with supreme talent, who played on the US’s 2008 Ryder Cup-winning team, who carded a record 11 birdies in a single round at the Masters, and reached No 6 in the world.

He just never came back until 2024. Unconfirmed reports were that Kim received somewhere between a $10-million and $20-million disability insurance payout with the proviso that he could not play professionally again. If he did, he would forfeit the money.

Kim has never fully confirmed the truth of that story, but he admitted in a comeback interview with the Guardian: “I know public perception is that I took this money and ran and decided I was just going to hang out,” Kim said. “That wasn’t the case at all. I had multiple, multiple surgeries in a few years. And my body is still not what it used to be.”

But when the upstart LIV Golf came calling in 2024 and offered Kim a chance to play again, he took it.

You may not care for golf, or sports in general, but this is a human story. It’s a tale of supreme talent undone by inner demons, that led to near suicide and rock bottom.

What we’ve been able to ascertain from the bit Kim has revealed, is that there was drugs and alcohol, shame and loathing. For about a decade he lived a dark and troubled existence.

Just coming back from those lows to live something resembling a “normal” life would be an achievement.

‘Too unbelievable’

But to return and win a big golf tournament, hunting down Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau from five shots behind after the third round to win by three strokes, is something the best Hollywood script writers would say is too unbelievable to write.

Kim is the first to admit that the way his life spiralled out of control is on him. Only he knows just how far he plummeted and what it took to get back to compete at the top.

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This might be the start of something special, or it might simply be a once-off win. No matter though, because it’s a story of redemption that resonates outside of the ropes on a fairway.

“I know the mainstream media is not going to pick it up (this story), but for the people that do hear about it, I want to be a good example,” Kim said after winning.

“I would say that I wasn’t the best person, the best partner, the best whatever you want to call it, the best son I could be, when I was younger. But who I am today is a completely different person.

“With God, my family, my sobriety being the key things to my life, I can go as far as I want.

“With all the lows that I went through in my life that I got to dig out of, every putt that went in, I felt the struggle, and I was overcoming it. It was therapeutic out there to fight through it and come out on top.

‘Not a loser’

“Obviously when Bella (his daughter) was born, and with Emily (his wife), my life changed. 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 admitted that winning and competing are important again, but inspiring others going through troughs in life, is his biggest inspiration.

“I told my wife this: The only way I get to reach the amount of people I want to reach is by winning,” Kim said.

“I can talk about my struggles all I want, but if I don’t have the platform, then I won’t reach many people.

“When I was in rehab, that was my goal. I said, if I got out of here, I’d like to help people, and golf wasn’t in the picture. So, to be able to have this platform, to have HE (His Excellency Yasir Al-Rumayyan) and LIV welcome me with open arms has been tremendous in my growth and my self-belief that other people believe in me.

“My goal is to inspire the people that are struggling because I feel like the world needs more of that today and my message is ‘don’t f….ing quit. That’s it. Don’t ever f….ing quit.”

LIV boost

While LIV golf have had some setbacks in recent weeks with marquee players Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed defecting back to the PGA Tour, the Kim story is a natural boost for the tour.

Kim beat two of the best players in the world, playing mesmerising golf, firing a nine-under 63, which included four straight birdies from the 12th hole.

It was compelling viewing at one of LIV’s biggest events with almost 40,0000 people at the course on Sunday and more than 115,000 attending during the week.

Kim claimed $4-million for the win, but the real victory has been the hard road to the podium again.

Former LIV chief executive Greg Norman lured him back (with a big chequebook too), but it wasn’t an easy reintegration.

Kim struggled in 2024 and 2025, and lost his playing privileges on LIV. He had to go back to their version of Tour School, and ironically received a wild card to join the Aces Golf team in place of the defected Reed.

In terms of significance in the game of golf, it was probably not as seismic as Woods’ 2019 Masters win to end an 11-year major drought, or Rory McIlroy’s 2025 Masters win, that gave him the career Grand Slam.

But as a human story, Kim’s victory is unmatched. DM