What we can learn from Anthony Kim

it was crazy because I'm a fan. I was a fan of his when he played and you know, a twelve year absence. I mean, I was at the Houston Open in twenty and twelve. I was working with Ernie L's and AKA was it was kind of right around the tee off times that Ernie. He was in the in Ernie's wave, and I watched him warm up, watched him hit some shots on the course. He pulled out, and then that was That was kind of it. But it's crazy to think that he's back playing golf. I

talked to him a bit. I posted some videos of his golf swing on my Instagram, and I guess you'd say, they went viral because everybody picked him up and everybody was looking at and it was a driver you know, it was a driver swing and an iron swing. And I think it's important to have to put into context who Anthony Kim was. I mean, there are a lot of people listening to this podcast that never saw him play,

but I did, and listen. He wasn't He didn't win fifteen twenty times, right, but he won three times on the PGA Tour, won a Ryder Cup, went three and one in the President's Cup, third the Masters in twenty ten, fifth in the the Open Championship twenty eleven. And he was kind of a cult type figure, cult type hero because he he was a total breaking of the mold of what everyone thought. Everybody on the PGA Tour was.

He was this young kid. You know, he had the ak belt with all the look like diamonds all over it. He just had an amazing looking golf swing, and you know, he was young, and I think it was kind of infectious the kind of energy that he brought. And then out of nowhere, he was just gone and he was injured, and then there were all these rumors and it was you know, over the last twelve years, it's been like Bigfoot.

You know, you would hear people say, oh, man saw ak the other day in Dallas, or I saw Anthony cam in Vegas, or I saw him in Palm Springs. And then every now and again, you'd you'd hear somebody say, man, I saw him hitting golf balls and it still looked the same. So, you know, over the last i'd say probably about three four months, and we kind of heard that there were rumors, and you know, he showed up on Live last week and played, and listen, he didn't

play great. Seventy six, seventy six, seventy four, he topped one, he shanked one, and there were a lot of people, you know, I read I saw on social and I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that say, you know that says, yeah, this is why Live's a joke that they let people like Anthony Kim, you know, play. But you all listening need to understand that the PGA tour was one hundred percent trying to get Anthony Kim back on the PGA tour. Listen, I know that, I

know that for a fact. So anybody that thinks that the tour wasn't trying to get Anthony Kim to come play. Unfortunately, I got news for you. They were he chose live, and it'll be interesting to see what happened. But the reason why I wanted to talk about it, obviously everybody's been talking about. But the reason why I wanted to talk about it and talk about his comeback he is I think it kind of blends with what a lot

of you hear me talk about on the podcast. All the time, I watched Anthony Kim on the driving range and I just sat there and watched him hit balls for twenty minutes, talk to him a bit, but just watched him as a fan, as an instructor, as someone that loves golf swings and listen. It was I mean, I've sitting there with Pat Perez and a couple of the other players, and you know, Charles Schwatzel was watching him hit balls and he was just looking weird, just

laughing because I mean, he was asking questions. First of all, he used DJ's track Man, and I think this story got out, but he had no idea how to use TrackMan. And I think the other thing that I in talking to AKA that I found very interesting is how much the game of golf has changed since he left twelve years ago. You know, he had no idea how to use a launch monitor. He used DJ's track man. We had to tell him how to set it up, We

had to tell him how to normalize it. We had to tell him what numbers to put on, and he he had no clue. He had no clue how to use one. He talked a lot about how much equipment has changed and how much balls have changed, so that I found very very interesting because I didn't really think in twelve years until you know, I was talking to Aka about it. The game has changed, I mean, and the technology has changed. I mean, the driver technology has changed.

Everything has changed in the last twelve years. And I think we look at all of the advances in golf and we kind of look at them retrospectively, you know, thirty forty fifty years ago. But the game has changed in the last decade to fifteen years. And Pat Perez told me a great story of having breakfast with Aka and sitting down and talking to him, and Akay said, listen, are there any rules that I need to know about

that have changed? And if you think about it, twelve years ago, you were dropping the golf ball kind of shoulder height, you could you couldn't double hit a chip without a penalty. You couldn't tap down spike marks. It was funny. I said, we were going through on the range, we're going through some more of the rules and I said, you know, you can tap down spike marks, and he said, you know, it's funny. I was watching golf the other day on TV and I saw somebody tap it down

spipe marks, and I was thinking, they're definitely cheating. And it was strange just to it was kind of like he'd come back to, you know, the planet. And obviously the planet that he's come back to is professional golf, but when you're away from it for that long, and I wasn't surprised. I thought he could do anything. Last week. I thought he could shoot, you know, under par I thought he could shoot over for but I thought seventy seven or seventy six, seventy six, seventy four was probably

about accurate. I don't know how one of the things that that Anthony said to me that he was not concerned about, but he thought that was going to be not an issue, but something that he was gonna have to deal with is He was like, I haven't walked eighteen holes in twelve years. Any golf that he had been playing, he's playing in karts. And I don't think people realize that, Yes, golf is not a contact sport. Everybody says, you know, it's easy, you know, it's not

physical and stuff. But walking fifty four holes, walking seventy two holes, walking thirty six holes. I mean, one of the things that amateurs always say to the tour players in pro ams is they're amazed at how tired they are by the end of the day because of all the walking. So that was something I think ak was having to deal with for the first time in a long time. But the golf swing on the driving range

looked great. I mean it looked good. The speed he wasn't up to full speed, but there were watching him and they were going I could see him shooting under power because of how good he was hitting it on the range. But that's what I wanted to talk about. And you've heard me say this before, but I think this is the best example of this that we could possibly have. What you do on the driving range has very little to almost no involvement in the outcome. It's

what you do on the golf course. So Ak's hitting balls. I'm watching them hit balls. Other players are watching them hit balls, and everybody's gone, Man, golf swing looks money. I mean, the golf swing looks great. But there is a massive difference to what your golf swing looks like on the driving range and how your golf swing performs on the golf course. And I think we saw that

last week with Anthony Kim. I'm sure that he hit a lot of good shots on the range and he hit some good shots on the golf course during the tournaments. His good shots were good shots, and that is something that I talked to all the players that I work with a lot, but I specifically, you know, probably talk more to junior golfers about this. The warm up, your practice sessions, your practice rounds, they're just that they're practice.

And there's a big, big difference when the flag goes up, when they put give you a scorecard and a pencil and you put it in your back pocket and you know that every bad shot you hit is going to cost you strokes. I watched, yeah, I walked around some holes and watched Anthony play and listen he was rusty. You know, I don't think he had total control over his golf ball. I don't think he one knew where it was going. And I think that's just because he

he has played no golf. He also told us when when he was getting back into golf, he ordered golf clubs off the internet because when he quit playing, he basically just gave away to his friends all his golf clubs. He didn't have any golf clubs. So I think it's going to take him sometime to dial in the equipment. I think it's going to take some time to dial

in his body. And I think it's going to take some time to dial in his golf swing so that he can go out on the golf course and perform and have his golf swing do what it needs to do on the golf course. But the walk, and I've said this a million times and it's a cliche, but it's a cliche because it's true. The longest walking golf is from the driving range to the first tee. And I think that if you are trying to get better at golf, you have to ask yourself two things. Do

you want to be a better practicer? Do you want to have a really good looking golf swing on the driving range and have a golf swing that everybody looks at and goes, man, he's got a beautiful looking golf I mean, we can go through loads of players that have really good looking golf swings that haven't one big tournaments, that haven't performed at the highest level, and I think we're seeing that with Aka. It was really cool to

see him again. It was so cool to see him hit golf balls and to watch his golf I was always a huge, huge fan of the way he swung the golf club, so to be able to see him again hitting golf balls on a driving range was really cool.

It was something, you know, special, to watch it up close and to just be able to sit there for fifteen twenty minutes and watch him hit balls, and everybody that was watching him hit balls was would kind of walk away after watching him hit you know, five ten balls and just kind of shake their head and just go, man, that looks really cool. But there is a massive, massive difference between the esthetics of your golf swing and how your golf swing performs when you were on the golf course,

and I think we saw that. I think we saw, you know, Anthony hit some wayward shots. He didn't get off to great starts, and that's something I think everybody listening goes through in their own golf swing. I think seeing I mean, in my opinion, what we saw from Anthony Kim last week was probably the closest that the rest of us are ever going to get to having somebody's game mirror rs. Meaning, didn't get off to great starts,

made some big numbers, shanked some, topped some. That's what all of us do on a regular basis as well, and I think it was a unique insight to just how hard the game of golf is and also how hard competitive professional golf is. I mean, the players make it look easy. I think there is this sometimes this kind of misguided view that yeah, it's not really that hard, but golf is hard, and golf is hard on a

number of different levels. Golf is hard physically, golf is hard technically, and golf most importantly and probably the most important part of the game of golf is the mental aspect of it. It's hard mentally. It's hard to stand up if you've hit a bad shot, if you've topped one, if you've shanked one, if you've rinched one in the water, if you've snapped hooked one out of bounds, it is very, very difficult to stand back up on the next shot

and make a committed golf swing. And that is I think the things that I took from last week that I think are positives for Ak. Right. I think that you know, there were some good shots. You know, his touch wasn't great. You know, his short game wasn't great. You know his speed was a little bit off on the putting greens. But I think this week as well in Hong Kong, for Ak, I think it's another opportunity for him to test and kind of gauge where he's at.

And then I think what he's going to do is go home and kind of say, okay, let's make a plan. I mean, he had one of his boys caddying for him. He knows he needs to get a real caddy, someone that can help him on the golf course, someone that can you know, shepherd him around the course. Is at a veteran, is it a young guy. I don't know. His old caddy, Biggie. He caddies Eric Larson. He cardies

for Harris English. Now Gary Matthews, who caddies for Wako'neman, who's won two out of the first three live events. He caddied for ak in the past, So I think the caddy is going to be a big part of this. I think if Anthony can get somebody on the bag that he knows, he trusts, he likes, and that can kind of point him in the right direction, I think that's going to be big. Obviously, he's going to need to get more command and control over his ball flights,

over his trajectories, all of that stuff. And to be honest with you, again, going back to what I just said, that's another example that he's human, that he's just like all of us. Like we're all trying to get better command control over a ball flight, we're trying to hit it more solid. I think that Anthony will take these two weeks, and depending on how he plays this, I would think that he would play better this week in Hong Kong than he played last week. A completely different

type of golf course. This is much tighter, it's more tree lined. Last week in Jeddo was desert, so if you hit it offline, you're hitting it into the desert. This week, if you hit it offline, you're hitting in the trees. But it's a different style of golf course. The length isn't going to be that big of an issue. So I mean, obviously there's some really really long hitters on Live Listen. There's long hitters everywhere, right, there's long

hitters on the PGA Tour, DP World, wherever. But this week, I think Anthony isn't going to be so much behind the eight ball, behind the bombers. But his iron game wasn't great last week. And I think if if he can go away after you know, the first two weeks and and really grind and kind of figure out use these two weeks and say, Okay, what wasn't working on the golf course? What aspect of my game wasn't working? Was it short game, was it putting? Was it iron play,

was it driving? Whatever it was? I think, ak, we'll get a good idea of what he needs to work on. But I think it's just fascinating that your golf swing can I I was I was marveling at how good it looked. I mean when he started hitting drivers, I was just standing there and I was like, I mean, how good's the position that he puts it in at the top. I mean the impact positions. You know, I took a bunch of slow mo video for myself, and when you slow it down, you know, the positions are

really really good in slow motion. In positions, AK swing looks solid, looks good. It looks like someone that has played golf at an incredibly high level. It looks like someone that has won tournaments on the PGA Tour, that has played in Ryder Cups. I mean, his golf swing passes the look test. But again, there's so much more to golf than just the way your golf swing looks.

And I hope everyone listening takes what Ak went through last week and applies it to their own game and says, Okay, there's what I do on the driving range, and then there's what I do when I'm actually playing golf. And I think last week is probably the best example I can give to everybody listening that playing the game of golf is more important than what your golf swing looks like. Okay, yeah, Anthony hit some bad shots and part of that has to do with his golf swing. I think he needs

more reps. Something that you know, Tiger Woods has made famous and made a constant statement. You know, you hear players say that, but he does. He needs reps, he needs more practice, he needs more rounds of golf. So I would imagine that he's probably going to be playing a lot of golf and hitting a lot of golf balls, and you know, he'll go on the driving range. He'll figure out what works and what doesn't work. Is is

golf swing definitely looked faster on the driving range. It looked more committed on the driving range than it did on some of the shots on the course. And again, I think that's a great parallel that everybody can for their own game, that you're trying to swing the golf club on the driving range the same way you swing it on the golf course. Which, listen, that's hard to do, right, I mean, you've got out of bounds, you've got water,

you've got hazards, you've got all of these things. So he, from what I was looking at, he was definitely making committed golf swings, and the golf swings looked a little bit more committed on the driving range, the irons and the driver as well. I mean he was able to kind of swing at it on the range and then on the golf course at times it looked a little

bit like he was steering it. And you all, if you're a regular listener of the pod, have heard me all the time say one of the best things that you can do on the golf course is to say, Okay, let me make a committed golf swing, okay to a not aggressive target. So just just making committed golf swings to conservative targets, right. But I also think last week is an example of you can not get off to

a good start. I think the positive Anthony will take where the long string of pars that he put together, I think that's that's important because you don't want to go out and shoot ninety and stuff. And listen, there were a lot of people that wanted him to fail there, and you see those people, and I think anybody that wants Anthony Kim to fail and to not do well is is doing that for their own reasons. And I think that you know, he he's going to get better,

He's going to get more comfortable. I would imagine, you know, he'll maybe go at some pins as the golf swing gets better that maybe he wasn't or maybe he just says listen, I'm just going to try and be really really conservative and and minimize all the mistakes that I'm making, and try and you stay away from the big numbers. I thought the first day his opening round, to not have any really really big numbers, I thought was a win.

He threw in some some doubles, which I expected him to do, and again that's a massive reason why he was shooting the scores that he was shooting. But I think when you over this coming year, I think Anthony Kim, you know, he's going to play a lot on live and I think it's going to be a very cool opportunity for all of us, his golf fans and his golfers to watch someone kind of come back and watch

how he handles the comeback, what he does. He worked the majority of his professional career with Adam Shriver as his instructor. Adam works on the PGA Tour with Sam Ryder, or at least did when when I was still on on tour. I've been on tour in a while, but Adam's a great coach. Does he link back up with him, Does Adam start coming out and traveling with him and and helping him. Does he you know, try the lone

wolf thing and dig it out of the dirt. Does he get an instructor, does he hire somebody to help him with his golf swing, to help him with his golf game. I think all of that is on the table. But I really I was just I was really happy to see him again. Listen, I'm not friends with him,

we're not boys. I knew him to say hello to him, But as a golfer and as a golf fan, I think it is an opportunity for some sense of redemption for a K and I and and I'd be interested to hear what his goals are, what what he thinks is kind of a win for this year, because I would imagine given the type of personality that Ak has, that that we've all been able to kind of you know, watch he always had a tremendous amount of confidence, and I think that was one of the things that that

I always really liked about him is he just didn't give a shit. He he wanted to beat you. He had a lot of swag, and you know, you can still see some of that there, but you know, he looks different. He's got the long hair, he's got the sleeve tad on the left arm. I'm here for all that, right, I mean, and listen, a lot of people were talking about how he looks and how he was dressed and all that stuff. Listen. I'm just glad the gets back.

I hope he gets you know, he can hopefully this can be the catalyst to to helping him find some happiness. He was over in Saudi Arabia, and I know he's this week here in Hong Kong. He's got his his wife and his young daughter with him and it was cool to see that too, you know. And I think that's in talking to some people that know Akay, I think that's one of the things that has driven him to want to come back and play competitive golf again so that his daughter maybe one day can see him

and remember him playing golf. But it was a really cool week and I'm excited. Uh I didn't see I didn't see him today, but I know DJ and And and Pat Perez were gonna they were definitely gonna try and play a practice round with him this week, and I think that would be really That's the other thing. I mean, I think Anthony's kind of been on his own, doing his own thing for you know the better part of you know, twelve years now. But I do think

it will be helpful. There were so many good players on Life, regardless of what everybody listening, whether they like live where they don't live, I don't care, I really don't. But there is some serious talent on Live. I mean, you walk up and down the driving range, and I think Anthony cam is walking up and down the driving range with some of the best players in the world, and so I think it will be massively beneficial for him to play practice rounds with some of these guys.

To play a practice round with DJ and Brooks and Cam Smith and John Rahm and all of these Bryson, I mean, I think, you know, he's going to learn a lot and see and kind of be able to gauge his game a lot. You know, the players, you know, they the big players like to play, especially around the majors.

I mean, I've said this on the pod before, Rory has DJ and Brooks play a lot of practice rounds with Rory around major championships, right because they're trying to kind of get an idea of what their games look like, what their strategies look like, and all of that kind

of stuff. So I think that's going to be something that is going to be massively beneficial for ak is to get back out and play some practice rounds with some of the best players in the world, some of the best ball strikers in the world, and I think that'll give him a very good gauge on the things that he needs to work on. I think this is going to be a fascinating year to watch a player that was one of the best players in the world, that had so much talent, and to watch him kind

of navigate where golf is in twenty twenty four. The game has changed, equipment has changed, technology has changed what we know about the body and stuff. He listen, he was injured, so hopefully the injury has healed and he can get back to playing golf. But I think he was really honest in his interviews and said, listen, you know one of the positive I think one of the cool things is he said he played so bad that he thought it was a positive because I mean, he

can only go up. He is a competitive person and he doesn't listen. He doesn't want to come and shoot, you know, a bunch over par every week. I mean, obviously not so I'm excited, and as a golf swing nerd is someone that whose entire life is looking at golf swings. I got to be honest with you. In the last week, I've spent a lot of time looking at ak swing, just you know, because it's it's he's back, and it's cool to see. And I'm excited, I really am.

I'm excited to see what he can do. And I think this is going to be a very interesting thing for all of you to follow. And like I said, this is basically what we all go through, right, We hit it good on the range, our practice sessions are good, and then we go out and we shoot over par, and then we come back and go, Okay, what do we need to work on? And I think part of this is going to be technical golf swing. Yeah, I

mean definitely. I do think that if he can get more control over his golf ball, if he can control the trajectory, you can flow control the flight, control the shots. I think that's going to make it. I think the putting in the short game is the easiest, low hanging fruit. You put some time in on that, get some reps

in on that, and he'll start to feel comfortable. And then I think this week it's going to be a different test, and and I'm excited and I'm interested to see how a really really different type of golf course than than we played last week. Yeah, last week desert very much like Scottsdale, very much like Palm Springs, wide open, wind blows a lot because that golf course in Jetta is right on the Red Sea, so you can get

some really windy days. But here in Hong Kong, it's it's it's a different anim well, it's a different type of golf course. It's tree lines, more parkland. It's very very different. And I think it's it's cool to to kind of get these two different golf courses for Ak early and then I think he'll have a really good idea of where his game is. But I'm a fan.

I want him to succeed. And if he was, if he was playing and getting some sponsors invites on the PGA Tour, I'd want him to succeed there as well. But if you think, and if if you're trying to use Anthony Kim coming to Live as a reason to think that Live is a joke and everything like that, if he wasn't going to live. He was going to the PGA Tour and he was going to get invites and you would have seen him there, So regardless of where he's playing, I'm excited. I think it's a big story.

I think he is a needle mover and we'll see how that plays out. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see him at some point this year on a leaderboard. I think he's good will be good, and if he can minimize and limit how bad the bad is, I think he can start playing some competitive golf and some decent golf again. And I am one hundred percent here for it AK being back. I think it's a good thing. It's just my opinion. I'm sure everybody else listening has theirs,

but I saw it up close. I got to talk to him, and it's pretty damn cool, something I never thought that we would see again. Can't thank everybody enough for listening. If you haven't listened to last week's episode with Victor Hovlin, it was good. It was a really good one. And there are a ton of good podcasts with a bunch of good guests. We're going to continue to try and get more guests. The Son of a Butcher comes to you every Wednesday, and we will see you all next week.