Of the many things LIV Golf has done in its short but turbulent existence, pulling Anthony Kim out of his self-imposed professional golf exile and bringing him back inside the ropes is a big one.
It may not matter greatly in the long term – we will have to see how much the 38-year-old Kim resembles the fearless and magnetic 26-year-old – but for the moment, it feels as if LIV has found a lost treasure.
Now it’s time to find out what’s inside the treasure chest.
According to a Golf Channel report citing multiple sources, Kim will join LIV Golf this week for its event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, ending several weeks of speculation about his professional resurrection.
This is what LIV is very good at: drawing attention for its recruiting. Whether you like LIV or not, there’s no arguing that it has been successful in coercing stars to sign on.
Kim isn’t a star like Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka or Jon Rahm, but he is two things at once: an attraction and a curiosity.
In our world of short attention spans, Anthony Kim is trending.
It has been easy to ignore how Smash GC is doing and tune out the complaints about Official World Golf Ranking points, but having Kim tee it up after all of these missing years is interesting, at least at the start.
Speaking of the world ranking, which LIV devotees do with regularity, it didn’t take social-media trolls long to pounce on the fact that the group arguing to be taken more seriously just added a guy who hasn’t played a professional event in more than a decade.
It won’t surprise anyone if Kim has lost what he had, because time has a way of doing that. But let’s play the what-if game for a moment.
It’s possible that Kim shows up, shoots a handful of middling scores and, before long, he’s just another guy getting a big payday for how he used to play. LIV has plenty of those guys filling out team rosters, though Kim will not be tied to a team initially.
It won’t surprise anyone if Kim has lost what he had, because time has a way of doing that.
But let’s play the what-if game for a moment.
What if Kim shows up in Jeddah and splashes some low numbers across his scorecard?
What if he fits in as if he never left, as if he never became one of golf’s enduring mysteries?
What if whatever LIV had to pay to offset the insurance payback that supposedly kept Kim away from tournament golf all these years turns out to be some of the best money that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which supports LIV, has spent?
And, stay with me here, what if the PGA Tour and the PIF reach an agreement soon, and what if that means Anthony Kim could return to the PGA Tour at some point?
That’s a lot of “what ifs,” but Anthony Kim has been the great what if since he disappeared.
It’s worth revisiting why Kim is so intriguing. He arrived like a comet, a product of Koreatown in Los Angeles, and he was fearless.
That’s a dangerous trait in golf, but Kim was never afraid to get close to the fire. It’s also fair to say that over time, Kim’s legend has grown in his absence, and we love our legends.
In a short time, Kim won three tour events and finished second four times. He put a beatdown on Sergio García in the 2008 Ryder Cup at Valhalla that ignited the Americans’ victory that Sunday. He made 11 birdies in the second round of the 2009 Masters.
A few years later, he was gone.
Exactly why has never been entirely clear. There were injuries. There may also have been a decline in his interest. Kim seemed to live by his own rules. When an insurance company provided a rumored eight-figure payout due to his injuries, the price of coming back was said to be too high.
Then LIV Golf arrived. While the jury is still out on whether LIV has been able to buy the relevance it desperately wants – so far, it hasn’t – it has been able to buy players.
We all know how strongly Jon Rahm said he was not interested in joining LIV until the money reached a point that he changed his mind.
Maybe that’s what Kim decided. LIV’s offer could solve the insurance problem, feather his bank account and let him see how much game and how much desire he still has.
If it doesn’t work, what’s the harm?
LIV will have struck another blow for its brand, and the rest of us will have the Anthony Kim question answered.
Maybe this turns out to be golf’s version of Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone’s vaults and finding nothing but dirt and a few empty bottles. That was a bust, but the ratings were enormous.
Rediscovering Anthony Kim bears watching, too, if only to find out what we’re going to see.
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Top: Anthony Kim hopes to have a blast playing LIV Golf.
Nick De La TORRE, HOUSTON CHRONICLE VIA GETTY IMAGES