Is LIV Golf Eyeing at Their Own Tiger Woods Through Anthony Kim?

Perhaps it was not a surprise, after all, that Anthony Kim went to LIV Golf. Kim’s candor, bold persona, and careless brashness all made him seem tailormade for the breakaway side. LIV Golf certainly wasn’t spendthrift in marketing Kim’s return. In fact, Greg Norman himself teased Kim’s return.

But why does a league that just scored its biggest draw and boasts two reigning Major champions need Kim, who last played a Major in 2011? Does LIV Golf need a new poster boy? Was a still-vivacious comparison between Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim also tempting the Great White Shark?

Kim’s enduring popularity has few parallels

Anthony Kim was expected to take the mantle from Tiger Woods. Not the mantle of 14 Majors that Woods raked in then. While many expected Kim to reach double digits with majors, it was still a little early. Kim was expected to take on the mantle of being the Tour’s poster boy. 

Let’s also not forget the time of Kim’s appearance. The PGA Tour plunged headlong into the post-Woods era after the sun of Tiger Woods seemed to be waning. Rory McIlroy, too, was yet to storm the Stateside with sheer force. Kim burst into the scene after making much noise in the Walker Cup and collegiate golf.

Turning pro at 21, Kim played in two PGA Tour events in 2006, bagging a runner-up finish in his debut. The next season was a hint at what was to come. With ten top-25 finishes from his 26 outings, Kim landed in 2008. That year, the rising star became the first golfer since Tiger Woods to win two events in the same season before turning 25. 

A chance at the 2008 Ryder Cup team followed. Kim stomped Valhalla, subjecting Sergio Garcia, Europe’s leading point scorer in the biennial showdown, to a 5&4 humiliation. Kim was 0nly the third player, alongside Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk, to rank within the top 10. 

To put that into more context, he was the only player under 25 and the third player under 30. But it’s not his achievements alone that made him part of the lore. Rather, what Kim represented stood higher than what he achieved on the greens. 

The swaggering brilliance of Anthony Kim

Paul Azinger, Kim’s US team captain, said the rookie Ryder Cupper was their “off-the-course team leader.” Azinger recounted, “He wanted Sergio all week… He kept saying, ‘I want to play Sergio, Zing. I want to play Sergio.’ It never worked out until Sunday, and we got lucky. Anthony ate it up and responded. He said on the first tee, ‘I’m going to whup his a** for you today, Captain.’

That aggressiveness was what the golf world was looking for after Tiger Woods. That brash and raw talent, and the sheer nonchalance in the face of intense pressure, made Anthony Kim an instant hit. Azinger added, “He was pointing at me, and if you can read his lips, he was saying, ‘I told you I was going to whup his a**!’” Kim was a hotshot descended on the greens, rocking belt buckles with his initials carved on them. Decked from head-to-toe on Nike apparel, it was a rather unthinkable sight but one that fans loved.

And, before anyone saw it coming, Anthony Kim went to the ‘Jay Leno Show’ to offer Jessica Alba a putting lesson. Not the only crossover he would do in his short career. Only weeks after that, Kim was at the NBA Celebrity All-Stars Game, notching two assists in the fourth quarter for the West team under Magic Johnson. Similar to his crashing like a meteor, the three-time PGA Tour winner vanished like a comet within two years of that. 

That mystery definitely added to the lore. “Golf Yeti,” veteran sportswriter Alan Shipnuck dubbed Kim. Seemingly, Greg Norman wanted the combination of these two: a star who can pull the crowd and someone who, given a chance, can still perform reasonably well. Will it pay off?

Will the Anthony Kim gamble backfire?

Arguably, Kim is likely to rake in more eyeballs than Rahm did in his debut. How well that translates to the later games depends on how well and how fast Kim comes back in form. There have already been speculations about whether the comeback hero can score a sub-70 in his first round at LIV Golf Jeddah. In his last round as a professional, Kim carded 74 at the 2012 Wells Fargo Championship. 

Let’s also not forget that golf’s landscape has changed a lot in the years since then. With it, the techniques have also changed. Suddenly, speed training is all the rage. Drives carry more weight than ever. So much so that the USGA and R&A have both jointly brought forth a golf ball rollback policy. 

Adapting his drive perhaps won’t cause too much trouble for Kim. He used to average around 294–300 yards against the Tour average of 285-290 yards during his heyday. But 12 years of hiatus is a tough thing to brush aside in one fell stroke. Ben Flaming at the Independent revealed that only two—Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson—from the world’s top 10 when Kim left playing are still in the top 200. Furthermore, only two players from that famed 2008 Ryder Cup team have full status on the PGA Tour. 

Read More: ‘[Anthony Kim] Made 10 Birdies’: Veteran Caddie Drops Major Bombshell Days Before LIV Golf Jeddah