Staff WriterFor the first time in 16 long, strange years, Anthony Kim walked off the 18th green with a trophy in his hands and chaos in the grandstands. At LIV Golf Adelaide, the former prodigy-turned-missing-person case didn’t just win a golf tournament; he dragged an entire comeback saga across the finish line, one nervy stroke at a time.
Relegated from the LIV Golf League in 2025, out of the limelight and very nearly out of chances, Anthony Kim resurfaced in South Australia and reminded everyone why his name once lived permanently on leaderboards. It was his first professional victory since 2010, and it arrived only six months after he’d been shuffled out of the League like yesterday’s tee sheet.
From Relegation Notice to Redemption Arc
When the axe fell in 2025, Kim didn’t disappear back into the shadows. Instead, he did something even more uncomfortable for a player who used to live on private jets and courtesy cars: he went back to work.
With his playing future very much on the line, he threw himself into the International Series on the Asian Tour, grinding through five consecutive events late in the season. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was necessary — competitive reps, new venues, sticky heat, and a very clear choice: evolve or vanish.
Speaking during the Jakarta International Championship in October, Kim called the chance to battle his way through the elevated events — and the pathway they offered back towards LIV — a “blessing”. A tied-fifth finish at the PIF Saudi International, his last start before LIV Golf Promotions, was the first real flare fired into the sky that his game was finally heading the right way.
The message was simple: Anthony Kim wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.
Roars in Adelaide and a Decade-Long Wait
Fast-forward to Adelaide and a gallery that looked and sounded like it had been waiting since 2010 to exhale. Kim, trailing a pair of heavyweights in Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, did what he used to do better than almost anyone: he got hot at exactly the right time.
By the time the last putt disappeared, the wait was over. The man who once seemed destined to be a cautionary tale had rewritten himself as the lead in a redemption story.
After his win, he said:
“I believed this was going to happen, but for it to actually happen is pretty insane. I just want to thank everyone who supported me through the tough times, when I wasn’t playing well, when I was struggling, and when I was on the verge of never making it back to LIV.”
For those who’d followed every twist of his story — the injuries, the rumours, the long silence, the sudden return — it sounded less like a victory speech and more like an escape report.
Kim knows that simply showing up isn’t enough. Winning is the megaphone.
“Through this, I want to inspire people,” Kim also shared. “The only way I get to reach the amount of people I want to reach is by winning. If I don’t have the platform, I won’t reach as many people.”
In other words: if Anthony Kim wants to reach the world, he has to keep beating it.
‘You Can Win This Thing’ – Inside Kim’s Final Round Mindset
If you were looking for a single lightning-bolt moment when he knew it was on, don’t bother. Even Kim isn’t sure when belief became inevitability.
Q: Anthony, what was the first moment out there today where you thought, “Okay, this could really happen”?
Anthony Kim: “Not really sure when that was. I felt like I didn’t putt well the first three days, but when I started seeing the lines on the greens, I just told myself: give yourself as many chances as possible — you can win this thing. Obviously, Bryson and Jon didn’t have their best day today, but regardless, I putted great. My caddie Kelly and I worked so well out there.”
That’s the old Kim you remember — fearless, slightly dangerous, and utterly uninterested in playing for second. Once he saw the putts start to drop, the swagger returned, just with a few more scars and a far clearer sense of what it had cost him to get back here.
From Wild Talent to Work in Progress
The Anthony Kim who once blew through golf like a rockstar with a yardage book knows his story hits differently now. This isn’t just about birdies; it’s about who he’s become while trying to make them again.
Q: Do you have a sense of just how inspirational your story has become?
Anthony Kim: “Well, I know the mainstream media isn’t going to pick it up, but for the people that do hear about it, I want to be a good example. I would say I wasn’t the best person, the best partner, the best son, whatever you want to call it, when I was younger. But who I am today is a completely different person, with God, my family, and my sobriety being the key things in my life.”
There it is — the quiet spine of the whole comeback. God, family, sobriety. The swing is still fast, the shot-making still audacious, but the foundations now sit somewhere far away from the driving range.
And he’s not pretending the journey stops in Adelaide.
Q: Deep down, do you believe you can get back to the level of the player who was third at The Masters, won PGA Tour events, and was No.6 in the world?
Anthony Kim: *“Nothing’s holding me back. I just have to keep working 1% better every day.
That mindset is something I’m going to carry with me to the day I die. So I don’t see why I can’t make it to the top again.”*
For a player who once vanished so completely that he became a myth, that’s not bravado. That’s intent.
The Wider Field and the Pathway That Worked
While most eyes locked onto Anthony Kim’s charge, the rest of the field had its own battles to fight.
The 2025 International Series Rankings leaders Scott Vincent and Yosuke Asaji finished tied 24th on 10-under-par, a reminder that even the season’s most consistent performers can get lost in the noise when a comeback of this magnitude is unfolding. Australian veteran Wade Ormsby closed out his week tied 37th on his home course, alongside LIV Golf Promotions winner Richard T. Lee, both men adding solid if unspectacular chapters to their own seasons.
But Adelaide’s loudest lesson came from the scoreboard beside Kim’s name. The International Series had been billed as a pathway to the LIV Golf League; in South Australia, it delivered its most emphatic proof yet.
For Anthony Kim, that pathway wasn’t just a route back into the League — it was the narrow, winding road to redemption, walked one shot, one round, and one brutally honest day at a time.
