Anthony Kim opens up about the last 12 years as he prepares for U.S. golf return

Anthony Kim looks back on the past 12 years as he prepares for his return to golf in the United States

MIAMI — He sent a message to about 100 people asking them to come. The first person to get there will be able to preserve all traces of Anthony Kim. It was a Saturday in 2012, a few months after he played his last event on the PGA Tour and shortly after he tore his Achilles tendon. He was already on the decline, making bad decisions that turned his life into a 12-year spiral of internal strife and external secrecy. He filled three or four rooms with everything related to his golf career. Hats, gloves, balls, shoes, clubs. “It was like a garage sale,” Kim said Thursday at his first public news conference in more than a decade.

He had already agreed to quit golf and was very happy about it. By the time all equipment and clothing was removed from the house, Anthony Kim’s early life as a professional golfer had also changed, because he didn’t like the game anyway. What really happened in these 12 years remains a mystery to us, and it has been a painful and traumatic journey, but in some ways we not only have no right to know, but also because Kim This is also because it hides most of the details.

But you can study Kim’s frustration with her own game by watching her at the LIV Golf Event at Trump National Doral, her first North American event since joining the tour last month. He chose these moments to remember what he called his lowest point and how close he came to it.

“When the doctor tells you that you don’t have much time to live, you may not have much time left,” Kim said. “It’s a pretty rude awakening.”

The 38-year-old version of Kim is very different, yet very similar. Once a young, brash golfer who wore extravagant belt buckles and rejected the boring old norms of golf, he took to the stage Thursday with his hat pulled down and a large, open-collared shirt pulled down to his hips. Ta. His black hair is tied up in a loose bun, long enough to fall over his back. At the same time, he strongly believes in the importance of being here, although he does not take it seriously.

Anthony Kim (right) finished 53rd and 50th in his first two starts on the LIV Golf Tour. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters via USA Today Sports)

It’s been years since he last competed on the PGA Tour, and even though Ryder’s Cup and Masters memories have become the stuff of legend, it’s the Internet that keeps Anthony and his Kim’s dreams alive. is a golfer. Ironically, the object of their affection was the least golfing person of them all. Kim didn’t know what a Trackman monitor was, so she went to her first LIV tournament in Saudi Arabia with a friend’s club. Until Thursday, he didn’t know the rules allowed him to practice swings and remove obstacles in dangerous situations. Kim had no connection to golf, so Dustin Johnson had to say that Brooks Koepka’s four major wins in three years was “unbelievable.” He may have heard at some point that Tiger Woods won the 2019 Masters, but he certainly didn’t follow through. When he wanted to sleep, he would play nine holes of golf at most. “I definitely heard that that happened, but I mean, through some of the things that I went through in my life, I wasn’t focused on golf. I didn’t care who won the golf tournament.” said Kim. Even in her heyday, it’s well-documented that Kim was a party animal and had a good time, although specific details remain unclear. In an LIV interview with announcer David Feherty, Kim said: Now that I say that, I literally don’t remember anything about that moment. Because I understand that when you’re 23, 24, 22, you have to do these things and it’s okay. But with my addictive personality, things can get out of hand.

We know that Kim has undergone countless surgeries. We know he had insurance for over $10 million. We know that he said he was surrounded by “bad people” and that he took 98% of his life away from them. And we know that it was so problematic that the doctors told him he didn’t have much time left. Isabella Kim was born several months premature two years ago, and like many premature babies, she faces an uphill battle. That’s when Kim realized she needed to change something, she said. “We had professional help,” he says. “I think I’ve been burying it because I couldn’t deal with most of the trauma and everything that happened in my life and I didn’t want to show weakness to anyone, right? And I thought showing weakness was weakness, and I had reached a point in my life where I didn’t care if anyone else thought of me that way. All that matters to me is my daughter, and as cheesy as it may sound, as long as her daughter is proud of me, I’m a happy person. ”