ANTHONY Kim, who once shot 11 birdies in a single round at the Masters that remains a record to this day, and then mysteriously disappeared from golf for more than a decade, completed his spectacular comeback on Sunday with a victory at LIV Golf Adelaide.
In a masterclass performance, the 40-year-old Kim shot a bogey-free 9-under-par 63 to beat a host of superstars that included overnight leader Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau that cemented his return to topnotch golf and back into the game’s conversation.
Kim finished 23 under par, three strokes better than runner-up Rahm who shot 1-under-par 70 and six shots better than three players tied for third that included DeChambeau.
READ Tabuena drops to 33rd with one round left in LIV Golf Adelaide
Kim also towed the 4Aces to third place in an affirmation to the trust given him by team captain Dustin Johnson who invited him to join the group after the season-opener in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, replacing Filipino star Miguel Tabuena.
Tabuena, tied 33rd after the third round Saturday at The Grange Golf Club, slipped to T44 after a poor finish that saw him bogey two of his last three holes.
His 1-over-par 73 was his worst score of the tournament and dropped him to 4 under overall, tied with five others in this second leg of the 14-tournament LIV Golf season.
It was not exactly a bad day at the office for Tabuena, the first Filipino to get a spot in LIV Golf where he was granted a wild card that will allow him to play for the rest of the season.
With his T44 finish, Tabuena still pocketed $88,500. Last week, in Riyadh, he went home with $50,000 after he finished tied 48th. In two weeks, Tabuena has so far won $138,500 or P7.8 million.
But the biggest paycheck for the week went to Kim who took home $4 million. The player's last win was 16 years ago and thought to have seen his better days until he was tapped as a wild card in the 2024 LIV Golf season.
He struggled all through those months and even lost his spot in the league after a poor performance last year. Kim had to go through various protocols including at the Promotions tournament where he played well to earn a wild card.
Last week, he got a call from Johnson who asked him to join the 4Aces team. He did not disappoint.
He was five shots back of Rahm at the start of the final round and got hot early with four birdies in his first nine holes. But he was hotter on the back nine, at one point rattling off four straight birdies from the 12th and then capped his round with another birdie on the 17th.
Holding back tears, Kim told an interviewer that he continued to believe in himself and was confident that his game would soon come back.
Kim was one of the PGA Tour’s promising young men before he disappeared from golf, almost without a trace. During this time, he said, he underwent several surgeries and also got associated with some "bad company."
He has three PGA Tour victories, the last one in 2010, and was one of the stars in the US team that won back the Ryder Cup in 2008. He also placed third in the 2010 Masters where he posted 11 birdies in the second round.
With his LIV Golf triumph, the door for his golf return, only slightly ajar, is now wide open.
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