Reasons why Anthony Kim’s First Round Back At LIV Golf Jeddah is been a
Reasons why Anthony Kim’s First Round Back At LIV Golf Jeddah is been a
Anthony Kim sits bottom of the leaderboard after his first round back at LIV Golf Jeddah – but how did he look?
Anthony Kim is back as a professional golfer after nearly 12 years away from the game.
The enigmatic American, perhaps unsurprisingly, sits bottom of the 54-man leaderboard after one round in Jeddah, where he looked nervy and rusty.
He bogeyed his 1st hole, the par 5 18th, after topping his second shot and then hit a shank on the 5th to find himself two-over-par after six. His one and only birdie followed at the 6th to get him back to one-over but he continued dropping shots on the way home to finish at six-over.
Kim’s round of 76 featured seven bogeys and one birdie, leaving him two strokes adrift on his own in last place and 14 back of the leaders.
Kim appeared to be struggling to keep up with playing partner Cameron Smith off the tee, who himself isn’t one of the longest hitters on the circuit.
Some of his drives only carried around 250 yards and many had ball speeds in the high 160s, which, despite the wind in Jeddah, will leave him well behind the likes of Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau’s big hitting.
As well as his bounce-back birdie, a positive from Kim’s round was his lack of doubles. Eight players made doubles on day one, and he wasn’t one of them.
Double bogeys are easy to come by on championship courses under the gun, so he can take some confidence that his round featured no real disaster holes.
Instead, it was a slow bleed of bogeys after bogeys, so he’ll be looking to turn those into pars over the course of the weekend and the rest of his season on LIV Golf, where he’ll be playing in every event as an individual wildcard, aside from the Team Championship.
During Kim’s opening round, Greg Norman was in the LIV commentary booth where he revealed what exactly made Kim return.
Was it the money? His desire to compete again? Clearly both of those were factors, but it sounds like it was due to his wife’s desire to learn how to play the game.
“His interest back in the game of golf was created because Emily his wife wanted to learn how to play the game of golf,” Norman revealed.
“So the two of them went out on the golf course, Emily said he’s a very, very good teacher and she’s fallen in love with the game so they started playing golf 2, 3, 4 times a week together.”
Despite not having his best stuff, Kim was in one of the featured groups and it was great to see his aggressive swing again.
