As a society, we feel the need to compare, contrast and categorise. It helps bring context to accomplishments and fuels the content machine around which discussions centre.
In the wake of Anthony Kim’s scintillating victory at LIV Golf Adelaide, Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan have inevitably appeared in the same discourse.
It’s understandable, but given the magnitude of what Kim achieved, moving on so quickly to comparison feels like a dereliction of journalistic duty. Plus, his circumstances are so unique within the realms of professional golf they almost defy categorisation.
Detractors will say this victory was only against a small field in a no-cut LIV Golf event, not in the pressure cooker of a Major Championship, but no one competing for a Major title will have felt the range of emotions Kim experienced during the final round at The Grange Golf Club.
When Kim was recruited by LIV Golf to play as a wildcard in 2024, it felt like nothing more than a PR stunt. I know he’s an adult and is therefore responsible for his own decisions, but dredging up a former star with a checkered past for promotional gain didn’t sit right with me.
Why? Because no part of me considered the possibility of him being successful. If you were to ask Greg Norman off the record, I’m confident he’d tell you the same thing. Optically, it looked a desperate move and seemed to suggest LIV’s roster of players were failing to move the needle.
Kim’s LIV debut came in March 2024 in Jeddah. He shot a 16-over-par three-round total and finished 33 shots adrift of winner Joaquin Niemann – apparent vindication for the naysayers, of which there were plenty.
"Drugs and alcohol to numb the pain"
That performance came as no surprise and it was unfair to expect anything else – his previous professional event was the Wells Fargo Championship in May 2012. He underwent achilles surgery shortly afterwards and hasn’t been seen on the PGA Tour since.
A combination of injuries, mental health struggles and addiction conspired against the swashbuckling Californian, who won three times on the PGA Tour, competed in the Ryder Cup and made a record 11 birdies during the second round of the 2009 Masters.
But while he appeared to be living the dream, he was battling inner demons and struggling with personal turmoil. In a poignant Instagram post celebrating two years sober in February 2025, he said he “contemplated ending my own life for two decades even while playing on the PGA Tour”.
He admitted to “making porta potty stops every few holes” during the Majors and said “every day I chose drugs and alcohol to numb the pain”.
Eventually, he ended up in a recovery facility. He said he was “barely physically able to walk into rehab… because my body was shutting down.”
While Kim hasn’t revealed too many details of that tumultuous period and his journey post-rehab, we know he credits his wife, Emily, and daughter, Bella, for helping him turn his life around. We don’t know where they met or when they married, but Bella was born in December 2021.
It seems Emily’s desire to learn golf provided the impetus for Kim’s reinvigoration, but his early performances on LIV offered no suggestion his second coming would bear any fruit. His best finish in 2024 was a 36th place and he was 42nd or worse in every other event (LIV had 54-player fields in ‘24).
Fortunately for Kim, wildcards were exempt from relegation, even though conversations were presumably had at LIV HQ as to whether his presence on the tour discredited the league. His 2025 started in a similar vein and he didn’t record a top-25 until June.
Still, if you squinted hard enough, you could see green shoots. He started playing some better golf towards the back end of 2025 and recorded a top-five finish at the Saudi International in November.
"Dad isn't a loser"
Nonetheless, he lost his place on LIV after that season, with the Saudi-backed circuit tightening its rules in an effort to placate the Official World Golf Ranking board. However, in January, he earned his spot back by virtue of a top-three finish in the LIV Golf Promotions Event.
He admitted there were times where he came close to throwing in the towel. It must have been so hard to keep going when he was constantly being labelled as a has-been charity case benefitting from undeserved altruism.
But keep going he did, completing the redemption arc in dramatic fashion in front of rapturous fans at LIV Adelaide. On a course Ian Poulter described as “on the edge”, Kim shot a blistering 63 to hold off Major Champions Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau.
It was pure theatre and LIV’s best moment to date. I have virtually no interest in the Saudi-backed circuit, but I will admit to feeling a little emotional during the winning press conference when Kim said he was proud to show Bella “dad isn’t a loser”.
Finishing 50th each week could have easily led to crushing self-doubt and sparked a relapse, but he stayed strong. I can’t fathom the mental strength it must take to pull yourself from the pits of depravity into the winners’ circle once again.
Time and time again, sport sets the stage for redemption, but it takes extraordinary fortitude to capitalise. Kim deserves all the credit in the world.
