Anthony Kim’s golf comeback now includes a concrete date for a return.
The 38-year-old, who last played in a PGA Tour event in May 2012 and has rarely been seen or heard from since, 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.
After withdrawing from the Wells Fargo Championship 12 years ago and undergoing surgery on his Achilles, the brash Kim, then 26 years old, essentially disappeared from the golf game — a stunning development considering he’d previously won three tournaments and climbed to No. 6 in the 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.
While the details of his LIV Golf future remain unclear beyond the upcoming event at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club, Golf.com reported last month that Dustin Johnson, among other golfers, vouched for Kim, 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,” according to the outlet.
As a wild-card participant, Kim could still win individual prizes even though he’s not on a team competing in the Saudi-backed league, according to Yahoo! Sports.
Kim’s PGA Tour debut ended with a second-place finish at the Valero Texas Open in 2006, and two years later, he won his first two events — at the Wachovia Championship and AT&T National — and strung together six other top-10 finishes.
Then, a week after his third and final win at the Shell Houston Open in 2010, he finished third at the Masters, recovering from a 73 on Saturday to shoot a 65 in the final round and finish four shots behind champion Phil Mickelson.
“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.”
The pivotal Wells Fargo Championship appearance occurred just 25 months after that, when Kim withdrew following the first round.
Kim finished in the top 10 just three times after that.
And the unusual spiral, as well as the lengthy absence, has turned his looming return Friday into a compelling revival.
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