It is a mild, overcast morning here at The Grange for round one of LIV Adelaide III: Last Stand At The Grange and a blustery sou-easter means it's shorts weather verging on hoodie. And we’re out on 15 with the wildcards, the journeymen, the just clinging on with their teeth.

The 15th tee-box is about as far as you can go in a cart from the centre of the action, that being on the first tee where the big dogs – Smith, Rahm, DeChambeau – are being heralded into the theatre by a raspy-throated American gee-up man and big-thumping bass beats.

If the game knows one thing, it’s an order of meritocracy.

Here on 15, it's Miguel Tabuena (wildcard), Luis Masaveu (Fireballs) and Anthony Kim (4 Aces), and they are journeymen all. Indeed, journeymen Exhibit A is A. Kim. And what a journey.

On his PGA Tour debut, aged 20, he tied for second in the Valero Texas Open. Two years later, he won the Wachovia Championship. Two months after that, he won the AT&T National, hosted by Tiger Woods. 

A year later, he was a major player in the United States' win in the Ryder Cup at Valhalla. In the second round of the 2009 Masters at Augusta National, his 7-under 65 featured a record 11 birdies. He won the Houston Open in 2010, then ran third at that year's Masters with a final-round 65.


And all the while he carried a thumb injury and a secret: drug addiction.

“I got so good at hiding it that I lost who I was,” Kim wrote on Instagram. “It's f--in' hard playing majors making porta potty stops every few holes.”

It all smacked of too much, too soon for the young man from Koreatown in Los Angeles, whose penchant for fast cars and fast living was bound to come unstuck, and did, if not spectacularly then in slow-motion car wreck style.

He effectively disappeared – off the circuit and into himself. There were multiple surgeries – hand, shoulder, spinal fusion. On his return to public life via a wildcard on the LIV Tour, he revealed to David Feherty that he’d lived in an “animal house, literally” – his housemates were six dogs and two monkeys.

But he found love, found himself, and found LIV Golf. In 2024, he ran 56th. In 2025, he ran 55th. And he was on his own. And then, in a Cinderella-come-Rocky story-of-sorts, he played his way back in with a third place in the LIV Golf Promotions Event at Florida’s Black Diamond Ranch. It earned him a spot with Dustin Johnson’s 4 Aces. It earned him respect.

Which is why Golf Australia magazine is out here with him on 15, to see what sort of golfer the 40-year-old actually is. The answer is: a pretty good one. Just don't ask him to channel the 22-year-old. 

"I really want nothing to do with that 20-something-year-old kid," Kim tells Golf Australia magazine. "I want to be right where I am. I'm very blessed to have an amazing family and be alive. This is awesome."

Dressed in all black like Gary Player and/or Whetton (Google him, kids), the man sports cool tattoos, a tight-bun tied up with a hot-pink hair-tie, and a rainbow bracelet that one assumes is a present from his three-year-old daughter.

Then he stands up, lines up, and hits the ball the proverbial country mile. His driver off the tee is a bomb – cracked, lashed, long down town, a beautiful thing. It’s a “big” golf shot, befitting of these big buck professionals. Maybe 280m on the wind? Who knows – it’s long enough to give him a long and skipping bump-n-run from under a hundred. His putt falls low-side. And he's away.

Another bombed drive leaves him maybe 130m in on 16, which he hits above the hole. There are three putts from there, the second of which from four feet misses so horribly that you’d be mortified had you missed it in a muckaround solo social round. It is a terrible bit of kit. Feherty would have some quip about it they’d use on the LIV Golf Playstation game.

Does he carry the angst with him? It appears not – driving ability has nothing to do with putting. After all, even great players can forget that in their damned pursuit of perfection. Rather, Kim smashes another driver – long, high, see you later, ball, tell your story rollin’.

He pounds another one on 18, leaves himself another little hop-skip to the pin. He misses the 10-footer. He bombs another one on the first, makes a birdie. He bombs again on the second, turns over his approach, flops wedge up softly and sweetly, to 12 feet. 

It is really good golf, after a fashion. It is like there’s a top-100 player in there, at least shades of one, busting to get out. You effectively can’t hit driver better. You probably don’t need to. But his short game, putting in this instance, just isn’t there, as it must be.

And then it is.

He makes a 12-footer for the save on two. He walks to three riding old mate momentum. He hits the next seven greens in regulation. He birdies seven. He birdies nine. He gets to two-under, three shots off the lead.

Is Rocky telling Clubber Lang that things “aint so bad”? Seems he is!

He birdies 11. He strides onto the Party Hole, takes his customary one waggle, and stiffs a 7-iron to 10-feet, staring it down all the way. He makes the putt. He is two off the lead. 

When he birdies 13 it's all the journo can do not to uppercut an imaginary Ivan Drago in a reenactment of Rocky IV. Aaadrriaaan!

On 14 he stiffs a beautiful 7-iron up the hill in to the wind and just shaves it right. He runs five-under, one off the pace, and is contender in LIV Adelaide III. 

"I think what I'm doing better is using my experience and my age to my advantage on the golf course. I'm more patient out there. Do I want to break 12 clubs some rounds? Absolutely. But I'm focusing on the next shot," Kim says.

"People told me in my early 20s that that's what I should be doing, and I don't know if it was arrogance or confidence that I didn't want to listen. But I'm playing smarter. I'm staying more patient."

Kim says his goals "are the same as they were when I first joined LIV - get one percent better every day, stay sober, enjoy time with my family, and whatever happens happens because all I can do is try my best."

Kim's best is pretty good. And if he's contending on Sunday afternoon, Cinderella will have some competition.