Put aside for a moment the subtext of the LIV Golf-PGA Tour tournament – endless scuffles. Try not to think about the posturing and skepticism that accompanies almost every LIV story. For now, focus on these simple facts:
Anthony King wins a golf tournament. Against Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. 2026.
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King, one of the sport’s true prodigies, turned a five-shot deficit into a three-stroke victory with a final-round 63 with nine birdies on Sunday at LIV Adelaide in Australia. If nothing else — and if that’s all King’s story is — it’s a pretty incredible return for a man who briefly dominated the golf world and then disappeared for more than a decade.
Golf often produces tales of return to the mountaintop, where a name from the past has a late-career week. Think Jack Nicklaus at the 1986 Masters, Tom Watson (almost) at the 2009 British Open, Tiger Woods at the 2019 Masters, Phil Mickelson at the 2021 PGA Championship. It’s so remarkable how everything came together in one weekend and what past games are like now.
Clearly, Kim Jong Un’s victory has no historical resonance. The only thing Adelaide and Augusta National University have in common is a letter of initiation. But King’s first professional win in nearly 16 years was an impressive tale of overcoming the demons of addiction and injury.
It’s hard to remember now, but for a brief period King was second only to Woods in popularity in golf – and Woods’ personal scandal erupted just as King was playing some of his best golf. Before Scottie Scheffler, before Brooks Koepka, before Jordan Spieth, before Rahm and DeChambeau, before Rory McIlroy won a tournament, there was gold. He went head-to-head with Tiger, he played alongside Michael Jordan, and he was the darling of SportsCenter when it was the center of the sports universe.
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Looking through the leaderboards from Kim’s peak season in 2009-10 feels like looking at faded family photos in a scrapbook. Since Kim’s win at the 2010 Shell Houston Open, only one player remains in the top 20: eternal wonder Justin Rose. Kim’s most recent players at the 2011 Masters include Ernie Els, Mark O’Meara, Craig Stadler and Watson.
But after an Achilles injury in 2012, King bowed out of the game. And not in a “showing up on NBA courtside and ESPN red carpet” kind of way. No, he categorically disappeared More than ten years. Rumors abounded about King—he was playing golf with friends in Oklahoma, staying in shape in California, and he hadn’t touched a club in five years—but no one could get a photo of King, let alone his story.
“I was surrounded by bad people,” King said in 2024. “They took advantage of me. Liars. When you’re 24, 25, even 30, you don’t realize there are snakes living under your roof.”
That’s why Greg Norman’s dramatic reveal of Kim as a new LIV member in 2024 caused such big ripples in certain quarters of golf fandom. King was once the coolest guy, the heir apparent to Woods, the herald of a new era in golf. After so many years away from the game, what is left of him?
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Not much, just to start with. He failed to score a single point in his first two seasons on tour and was eventually relegated. His story could have been over, but he finished third in the LIV promotion and went T22 in his first game of the season…and here we are. A win is a win, especially when you have two of the best players in the world in your final bracket.
It will be interesting to see how the golf world views this win. As expected, LIV players rallied around Kim. European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald was one of the first non-LIV players to praise King’s achievement, which isn’t surprising considering it happened in the middle of the night in the United States:
For LIV, this is undoubtedly the most significant victory in the history of the tour. This story will be widely circulated in a way that the Rippers’ recent victory in Adelaide will not. With the emergence of Rahm and DeChambeau legitimizing the win, LIV now faces the challenge of converting the burst of fan attention into long-term connections.
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For King, the takeaway is much simpler. Yes, his world ranking will rise to around 200, but that’s not the real story. Kim rose from the bottom of his life and climbed back to the top of the charts. For now, that’s enough.