Kim was back in Australia on Sunday, full of swagger and energy, as he pulled off a stunning rally – not just in the final round of LIV Golf Adelaide, but in life. Five shots behind Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, he closed with a 9-under 63 for his first victory in almost 16 years.
He put on an electric show with leg-kicking and fist-throwing responses for his four straight birdies in front of LIV’s biggest and loudest crowd of the season.
“I’m too old to react like that because I think I pulled something in my hip,” said 40-year-old Kim, laughing. “But I will say these were all the low points I’ve been through in my life that I had to get out of. With every putt I felt the struggle and I overcame it. It was therapeutic to fight through it and come out on top.”
These struggles include a drug and alcohol addiction so severe that Kim considers it a minor miracle that he is still alive. He is married and has a four-year-old daughter, Bella, who ran onto the 18th green at The Grange Golf Club and into his arms.
“To be able to share this moment – even though Bella won’t understand it one day, one day she will – and to be able to run on the green and see that her dad isn’t a loser was one of the most special moments of my life,” Kim said.
LIV Golf took a chance on Kim in 2024 when he played as a wild card and often finished at the bottom of the small fields. Last season wasn’t much better, although he showed signs of progress at the end of last season – 1% better every day is his motto.
He was demoted from the Saudi Arabia-funded league. He finished in fifth place in the Saudi International. He had to play a qualifying tournament last month to get another season on the LIV Tour.
Perhaps the final boost of confidence, Dustin Johnson signed Kim to his 4 Aces team when Patrick Reed decided to leave the league.
The three-shot victory over Rahm was as big as any moment at LIV, at a time when the league lost two of its bigger names: Brooks Koepka and Reed. All that mattered to Kim was that things came full circle.
“I know the mainstream media won’t pick it up,” said Kim, who won at the Winter Olympics, the Daytona 500 and the NBA All-Star Game.
“But I want to be a good example for the people who do hear about it,” he said. “I would say I wasn’t the best person, the best partner, the best whatever you want to call it, the best son I could be when I was younger. But who I am now is a completely different person. With God, my family and my sobriety as the most important things in my life, I can go as far as I want.”
Kim played in black shorts – with black calf socks and white shoes – in front of a large crowd on a sunny day at The Grange. Kim overtook Rahm after nine holes and pulled away. Thousands of spectators followed him on the 18th fairway as he concluded his great day.
It was his first victory since the 2010 Houston Open, the last of his three titles on the PGA Tour. He had finished no higher than a shared 22nd place on LIV last week in Saudi Arabia. He won $4 million – he made just over $4.6 million in his best season on the PGA Tour.
Rahm closed with a 71 and DeChambeau shot 74 on a day when the average score was 69.8.
Kim reached sixth in the world in 2008, the year he played in his only Ryder Cup at Valhalla and needed just 14 holes to beat Sergio Garcia in singles. He moves up to just outside the top 200 now that LIV gains points in the world rankings.
As big a victory as Kim was, he was popular among the players he defeated.
“I cried,” Lucas Herbert said.
“Man, he was a weapon,” said Marc Leishman, whose rookie season on the PGA Tour coincided with Kim’s peak years. “He almost had an aura about him, somewhat because of his golfing, somewhat because of his partying. I mean, to see where he comes from… I’ve talked to him quite a bit over the years about some of his experiences.
“It’s an incredible story, the place he ended up and how close he came to not being here. I’m not talking about Adelaide, I’m talking about not being on this planet.”
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