KIM TAKES LONG, WINDING ROAD BACK TO GOLF
American says upcoming doc will tell all, but he's grateful to be back in the game
Anthony Kim didn't know Brooks Koepka won back-toback majors, but remembers hearing that Tiger Woods won the 2019 Masters. He has had seven surgeries since leaving the PGA Tour and was once told by doctors that he didn't have much time left.
Those were just some of the revelations from Kim's news conference on Thursday ahead of LIV Golf Miami. “I just found out from (Dustin Johnson) playing a practice round with him yesterday that Brooks won back-to-back majors, which is awesome. But I had no clue that that happened,” Kim said.
The 38-year-old was then asked if was aware of Woods' 2019 return to glory Masters win.
“Where I was in my life, I really wasn't focused on golf. I definitely heard that it happened but I mean, you know, going through some of the things I've gone through in my life, I wasn't focused on golf,” he said. “I didn't care about somebody who won a golf tournament. There's so many other big issues going on in the world that golf is such a small part of it.”
Golf 's mysterious vagabond described being saved by his love for his daughter Isabella before returning to the game that made him a cult icon. When asked where he'd been, he hinted at alcohol problems, joking that if he were to name an LIV Golf team it might be “Drunk by the Turn,” and explained that there wasn't enough time in the day to delve into the issues that saw one of the game's brightest stars fall off the golf map.
“Once you get going down that slippery slope, it's hard to make your way back, and unfortunately, I just kept going downhill and somehow, I've made it through. I'm sitting here in front of you just feeling really honoured and blessed to be here because there's a lot of reasons I shouldn't be here right now,” he said. “I think once my documentary comes out, people will understand how low of a point it got, and it will make more sense. But I wasn't in a place to play golf.”
It was 14 years ago Thursday that Kim earned the last of his three PGA Tour wins at the Houston Open. The one-time Ryder Cup star finished third that year at the Masters, where he had set the single-round record for birdies a year earlier. His 11 birdies in the second round of the 2009 Masters is still the tournament record.
Kim says he's focused on what's ahead rather than the past and said he barely watched any golf while he was away from the game, other than “nine holes of golf when I wanted to fall asleep.” The golfer realizes that his past has been a topic of much speculation and says that an upcoming documentary will be best tell his story in a more complete way.
“Not to get too far into it, but when doctors are telling you that you may not have much time left, that's a pretty rude awakening,” he said. “I got professional help. I think that I didn't deal with a lot of the trauma and whatever came from my life, and I buried it because I didn't want to show anybody weakness, right? And I thought by showing vulnerability, that was weakness, and I've come to a point in my life where I don't care if somebody thinks that about me or not. My daughter is all I care about, and I know it almost sounds corny for me to say, but as long as she's proud of me, I'm a happy man.”
It wasn't until his wife recently showed an interest in the game that Kim made his way back to the golf course. “Yeah, so she wanted to play four or five days a week, and so I jumped in a cart, turned on some music, and I DJ'D, caddied, did it all, right?
Nine holes a day, we'd go out there,” he said. “... I just started to think that I could do this again. Whether people believe that I can do it or not, I believe I can do it and hopefully, I'll be in contention this year.”
Kim said he didn't start practising in earnest until three weeks before his March 1 comeback at LIV Golf Jeddah. Kim finished last, but showed signs of his old game a week later with a final round 65 in Hong Kong. LIV Golf Miami, the third event of his comeback, begins Friday at Trump National Doral.
“I'm very grateful for this opportunity. I've gone obviously through some tough things in my life, and you know, I'm taking responsibility for those things.”