“You want to see an epic swing?”

The teen hearing this was excited. He was learning, and epic swings inspire. But Matt Killen enjoys sharing this video. He has a few versions of it, all shot on an old Casio camera, which is what folks used before iPhones. That tells you this video itself was about as old as the kid who was about to watch it. 

He soon had a question. 

‘Who’s Anthony Kim?’

Killen laughed while telling the story. Who’s Anthony Kim? How much time do you have?

Today, Kim is your latest LIV Golf winner, after a Sunday rally in Australia that saw him track down Jon Rahm, the 2021 U.S. Open and 2023 Masters winner, and Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 and 2024 U.S. Open champ. There’s overwhelmingly more to it, though. Kim had been everywhere. And then nowhere. There were no wins since 2010. And no golf, nor much of anything in terms of public appearance, for a dozen years starting in 2012. What happened over that stretch is mostly unknown, though Kim has shared stories of alcohol and drug abuse. 

But Killen still had those videos. He’d recorded a few of Kim around the 2008 Ryder Cup, played at Valhalla in Killen’s home state of Kentucky, where the young teaching pro was coaching a quarter of the U.S. team (Kenny Perry, Chad Campbell and J.B. Holmes) and its captain (Paul Azinger). He showed his wife the recordings. That’s the dude who won three times before the age of 25. That’s the dude who throttled Sergio Garcia in Sunday singles at the Ryder Cup. That’s the dude who once birdied 11 holes at the Masters — in one round. That’s the dude with the ‘AK’ belt. 

That’s the dude Killen said he bumped into about a month before Kim returned to pro golf in February of 2024. 

“I was like, man, ‘I have asked people over the last 12 years if anybody’s seen you and you’ve completely been gone,’” Killen said. 

“‘Like this is amazing to even run into you. How are you? What’s going on?’” 

A few days later, Kim texted:

Could he see him swing?

How Anthony Kim’s game came back over two years, capped by a victory

Killen and Kim had connected here and there during Kim’s time on the PGA Tour, at ranges and tournaments mostly, while Kim played practice rounds with Perry. “As a young coach,” Killen said, “it was just kind of trying to pick up a nugget here or there.” Kim’s swagger enthralled him, though. It was one thing that he was successful. But it was how he was doing it. To Killen, Kim was cinematic. 

“He knew he was going to play good,” he said. “That’s an intimidating opponent.”

As are 12 years away. In most major sports, that’s an entire career. That’s graduating high school, graduating college and being well on your way in the workforce. For Kim? The hiatus showed. On one of their first sessions, Killen said Kim didn’t even have clubs. A plan developed, though. Killen treated the absence as if Kim were returning from injury. He’d had experience there. Perry had had a knee operation; Holmes a brain procedure. First, they’d work on a foundation. Then hit shots. Then figure out scoring. 

Then finally play golf. 

“You always have that little bit of a question or at least I think the player does, like, will I be able to do it?” Killen said. “And as your body changes over time, you do have to adapt based on what you can physically do. So there’s ‘what I used to do.’ Well, can you still move the way you used to move after surgeries and things that have happened? 

“So it’s a fine line between trying to re-create what once was and taking what once was and adapting it to where you currently are In life or physically.”

It all sounded great. But then Kim tanked. 

Season 1 with LIV, Kim finished 56th out of 58 players who received points in the season-long standings. 

Season 2 with LIV, Kim was relegated from the league. 

Around early January of this year, Kim and Killen talked. Kim was entering LIV’s “Promotions Event,” which awards three spots into the LIV season. Stumble there, and the future would be foggy.

Kim finished third. 

A few weeks later, on Sunday in Australia, he won. 

“I don’t think either one of us was like, ‘OK, I hope you play good,’” Killen said of the Promotions Event. “We were like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to go do this. Like, how are you going to do it?’ And he said he’s going to do it. And so then backtracking, like what shots do you need, how are you going to manage that, what information do we put in that is helpful but doesn’t take away the ability for him to be an athlete.

“And what that means is letting subconscious take over. You don’t even think about positions or complex swing thoughts when you need to hole it. … You’ve got to play golf.”

Killen said there was never a Plan B. Still isn’t. 

“I mean, if you watch the shots he hit [on Sunday], you know, under the gun, he hit the most incredible shots. And again, that’s a superpower, like being able to do it when it matters the most. He wants the ball. He wants that opportunity. And you can see it. He likes the energy. He likes the crowd. The way he walked and carried himself in his prior PGA Tour life, I like that about him because confidence, that’s a major part of life, being able to believe in yourself and have that self-belief — are you going to show off or to not mess up? You want the guys going to show off. 

“And he has that.”

What it was like watching Anthony Kim’s win 

After the win, Killen was proud. And tired. On Sunday, he watched from Florida, where the final round ended around 2 a.m. The next day, Killen FaceTimed Kim, along with Kim’s wife, Emily; and Kim’s daughter, Bella. 

Shortly into the call, Killen wondered how Kim felt. 

“He’s like, I don’t really know,” Killen said. 

There are, of course, layers here. He’d won before. He thought he’d win again. Easy. Or not so much. After 12 years away and two underwhelming seasons, you could be excused for thinking he wouldn’t. There’s also what Kim had been through during his absence. Killen and Kim have talked about that. Knowing what he does, Killen said what Kim has done is golf’s greatest comeback story. (Notably, Killen had also worked with Tiger Woods during Woods’ 2019 Masters win.) Kim’s family is also a part of things. Seconds after his final stroke in Australia, Kim looked for Emily and Bella. “He told me a long time ago,” Killen said, “that he wanted to show his daughter that he wasn’t a loser.”

Comebacks aren’t straightforward. Often they fizzle. Sports, while entertaining, aren’t movies.  

But the thought was: Why not believe?

“I’ve been telling everybody since he came back, ‘I think he’ll win again,’” Killen said. “And I had a lot of people call me and tell me, like, ‘Wow, like I did not see this coming at any point.’ And again his resilience and determination. 

“And his ability.”

That epic swing. 

The idea of that never left, Team Kim felt. 

Nor did it for the student who once wondered who Anthony Kim was. As these things sometimes go, he was back on the range with Killen on Monday. 

He’s since met Kim. Seen the process. Seen him play. 

“He was like … ,” Killen said, “you gave me an example.” 

Editor’s note: For more from Kim and Killen, Kim’s YouTube page recently posted a video describing their work together, and you can find it here. 

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