Fans were not expecting the news
Golf fans may be forgiven for thinking they wouldn’t hear anything about Anthony Kim ever again, but he is coming back to the sport after 12 years away.
Kim is going to be back in the sport after joining the controversial LIV Golf circuit. The 38-year-old last played in a PGA Tour event in 2012.
He has barely been heard from since then, let alone seen on the green, but he will make an appearance next weekend as a wild-card participant when LIV Golf hosts its event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from March 1-3, according to Golf Channel.
He withdrew from the Wells Fargo Championship in 2012 so that he could have surgery on his Achilles, but he then disappeared from the game altogether.
Previously, he had won three tournaments and rose as high as sixth in the world rankings.
But near the end of January, Golf.com reported that Kim was nearing a return after “ramping up workouts” and was negotiating with the Tour and LIV Golf, with a key point of those discussions revolving around a $10 million insurance policy that Kim would surrender by returning.
Kim is back in the frame
He will be at the next event at the Royal Greens Golf and Country Club, and Golf.com has reported that Dustin Johnson and other golfers had vouched for Kim and helped to facilitate his return to the sport, via LIV Golf.
CEO Greg Norman called him and then LIV Golf offered a one-year deal that took care of the insurance policy “while allowing him to earn prize money and sponsor deals on top of that.”
“I feel like I’ve actually gotten over a little hump in my golf career when I felt like things were stalling,” Kim told reporters after the final round in 2010, according to Golfweek.
“I think I was expecting to shoot 65 every time I teed it up. . . . Then I start pressing, and I start trying to make birdies and start going for pins that I don’t necessarily need to go for. I know now that with my attitude, if I can just get my ballstriking to where it was, I’m going to be at a different level.”
