I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my ball.
In a brid egg Friday Egg and Frida Egg Friday Friday Bride.
Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the.
Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. Today's episode, me and Joseph Lamania are going to go deep on Anthony Kim and Uh. We're also going to have Shane Bacon on to talk about this. With obviously the news that Anthony Kim might be coming back, we figured it'd be fun to do a little career retrospective and then looking forward and some comparisons to what Anthony Kim would be in the modern era. But first, Joseph, what are you in on this week?
Well, I'm double dipping a little bit from writing about this in the Friday Golf newsletter, but I gotta say way in on Tony Feenow regaining some speed.
Andy.
Don't know if you saw this, but it's been.
I read your little piece.
It's been a little bit of a statistical anomaly. Over the last couple of years. I've been puzzled as to why Tony Finow's driving distance numbers haven't been what they used to be. He's kind of been trending the wrong direction. Ball speed pretty much every year on tour has gone down. He used to be a top ten, top fifteen ball speed guy. Last year was like fortieth, and especially on the back half of last year, results weren't as good
and his driving distance numbers were down. He mentioned after one of his rounds at Toy that he's bringing that speed back up, that he was nursing a couple injuries and he's finally healthy. He did an offseat of off sea of training, including some speed training, and I'm pretty excited to see what Tony Finow has this year. He's obviously a great player. I think some people may forget he won four times between July of twenty twenty two and April of twenty twenty three, and just real quickly
to rattle off some of his major championship performances. Between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty one, he had at least two top tens, and each of those four years at least two top tens in a major championship. In twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three zero top tens combined in any either of those years, and I think the speed decrease is a part of that. So I'm pretty excited to see what Tony Finales got this year.
I mean, I think about Tony Fenow and obviously if you were going to pull PGA Tour fans, the first attribute in terms of his game that they would touch on as the speed.
So that is.
A you know, very important aspect to his game, right, I think like that would be like if Steph Curry had an injury that prohibited him from getting enough lift to shoot three pointers right where he was hampered and lost let's just say eight percent on a three pointer. Like I'm just trying to equate some equivalencies here, but like the aspect of venous distance is it obscures a little bit how good of an iron player and short game he has. The putting was very scary, very scary Sunday.
That was maybe the worst I've ever seen of it. But like you're talking about a guy who has three elite skills, and it's very rare for any player to have, like the possibility to be at the top end of an elite field in three categories. There are very few players that can do that, and Tony Fenow obviously getting that speedback, that's a good harbinger for twenty twenty four Majors.
He could be a nice dark horse to look at in terms of like if you're doing like I had a buddy that was at the win in Vegas and sent me a bed slip for the for the Majors, and I was picking out some long shots, but like that could be one to look at, right.
I think the Masters in particular is an excellent spot for Tony Pinaw. What are you went on?
I am in on this week's tournament, Pebble Beach. I I'm kind of like mixed on designated events in general, but I just think that this match is a great match in terms of having a elite field at you know, your elite venue, like one of your premier venues, and the way this all has worked out where the event falls in between you know, the super Bowl and the Conference Championships. You know, the last few years of this event have not been pretty, with the Saudi International kind
of stealing away a lot of players. Famously, like Phil used to play in this event all the time, then he started playing at Saudi in international. Now he's obviously playing live, but this event has has been kind of like mutilated the last few years in terms of a field perspective, where it went from one of the stronger events to one of the weaker events for a tour
right now. That is I don't know if struggling is the right word, but not its strongest it's ever been with fans with with in terms of their fields, in terms of their you know who's playing. Having Pebble Beach be a big time event on you know what you're putting out there on you know, CBS that will be broadcasted primetime or not primetime, but like middle Sunday Saturday, with no real big competition outside of college basketball, this event being a big deal is important and awesome for
the PGA Tour. Right You're going to have the best players playing one of your best venues, definitely your best television venue. Right from a television perspective, there's no course that it comes close to Pebble Beach, So just that pairing is an awesome thing for the PGA Tour. I'm super in on this event. I think reducing the pro am to just two days makes a ton of sense
dropping on PCC. It's a wonderful golf course, but having to be just pebble and spyglass, it just makes this event a lot cleaner, a lot cleaner in the future of it, and just in general. I'm way in on this event.
I'm with you. I think the visuals alone are gonna be awesome having all the best golfers, most of the best golfers in the world on the same golf course. I think weather it's a little bit of a concern. So I don't know if you've checked out the forecast, but looks.
Like I'm aware. I'm aware the atmospheric river's coming. I think I think it could be good for entertainment on the golf course.
I hope, so yeah, I just don't want to have a soggy finish.
We'll see.
But I'm with you, it's gonna be a great tournament. But one thing I'm out on that's related to the tournament. I know this has been talked about a little bit. I'm way out on the sponsor exemptions and how they were used this week, and specifically Peter Malnatti, Web Simpson, Adam Scott, three policy board members all getting a sponsor exemption into this event. I think optically it's really bad. And I mean Peter mal Naughty and Web Simpson are two of the players with the longest odds to win
this tournament. Peter Malnatty's dead last, And I just think generally the tour has a bit of an optics issue with some backscratching. If you're in the in crowd, maybe you'll get an invite it to a twenty million dollar perse with no cuts. And I do have a problem with it. Think sponsor exemptions can be a tricky subject because, like nobody's complaining about Nick Dunlap right like, because I'm
kind of philosophically opposed to sponsor exemptions in general. But somebody could say, well, Nick Dunlap was a great use of a sponsor exemption.
Or or if Tiger wants to play, what do you do then?
And I think my answer to both of those is that there are ways to get them into the field that aren't a sponsor exemption. You could carve out a spot for the reigning US Amateur champion. That's a good way to get somebody into the field without having to giving somebody the ability to just write an aim in that you know, you could get a situation like paresh am In last year, which was a crazy sponsor exemption at the Dessert Class.
Can you explain what happened for those that might might have forgotten about paresh Amn. Yeah, well they had a great breakdown on the shotgun start.
There were no boundaries around what a sponsor exemption could be. So this guy Paresha'm in that I'm hesitant to call him a professional golfer, though I think he's played some mini tour stuff, routinely shoots in the eighties in many tour golf, and got a sponsor exemption into the Dessert
Classic last year, which is a partner event. So I think he ended up teaming up with Michael Thompson if I remember correctly, and I mean he was shooting, hitting terrible golf shots, might have shot in the eighties on his own ball, if I recall correctly, in the best ball portion of that format. So just generally there have been some stinky sponsor exemptions, and I think this week, even if yeah, Peter Malnati is a PGA Tour player, like he's not paresham In, but having three of those
spots go to policy board members. When it's a twenty million dollars no cut event, I think looks bad. And I'm not going to say it puts a black cloud on the event. It doesn't, but I just think generally the tour needs to clean that kind of stuff up.
That's uh, I agree. I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that they are not vitally important. And I also know that four is not the right number of sponsors exemptions. I could, I could. I just think that there has to be a really great reduction in them. I probably think that it's a non even number, no greater than two, right, that's probably the right number.
I'm inclined towards zero, truly, And you figure, oh, way, Ty, you could use a career money list type of exemption if you need to, or like in the Nick Dunlap case, reigning US Amateur champion, Like, I'm just in favor of getting them into the field organically and not giving somebody the ability to just write and name it.
So my thought, this is just my general thought, is that this is a great argument for trees, like on golf courses, when somebody's like, oh, you can't you can't cut down trees like you know you're gonna ruin the holes. Is if you walk around with them and say show me the tree, one tree, you could give them eighteen trees one tree per whole, Eighteen trees on a golf course that are vitally important to the integrity of this
golf course. You know, when they when you synthesize it down to like that that eighteen you get eighteen trees you could keep, they'll usually come back with like, well, there's like four important trees. So if you just reduce the sponsor's exemptions, people are gonna be like, oh, like these really aren't very important, and it's a way you get rid of them slowly.
I tell you what, Between the sponsor exemption talk and the tree talk, this is going to be Web Simpson's least favorite segment on the Friday Golf Podcast of all time.
And he might agree. He might agree with this, like, but you're not going to turn down getting into a no CUD event that's got a twenty million dollars pers.
Right, she has a legitimate impact on other people's careers, right Their FedEx cut points up for grabs that this could end up being the difference between why Web Simpson gets a card next year versus Saturdaycneely or Matt McNeely. Absolutely, yeah, what else are you out on this week?
Andy?
All right, I'm out. I'm just out on the continued advancement of modern drivers. Oh yeah, this is uh, this is a topic that I've approached many times here, but I'm seeing like sub drivers that are touting if you hit it off the center of the club face, the ball goes actually further than if you hit it in the dead center of the sweet spot. I mean, what are we doing with professional golf? Like I'm all for
this for like fifteen handicaps and twenty handicaps. I'm not saying that we should be making the game more approachable for them, But in the vein of professional golf, all we're doing is we're just obscuring skill over and over again. Like we're making it so it's just impossible to tell who's better at golf, and it becomes just a putting contest every week because off the tee the ball like I have a new paradigm. I'm not gonna lie, like
the thing always goes straight. Like it's hard for me to hit bad t shots, Like really hard, and I just think that this driver technology has gotten completely out of control, especially when you're talking about the greatest players in the game. We should be, you know, the game
at the high level, at the pro golf. There's so many things that are broken, but this might be the most broken thing aspect of all of it, is that we have we have taken to the club that was the hardest club to hit in the bag in the nineties and it is now the easiest club to hit in the bag. As your driver, without a doubt, is
the easiest club to hit in the bag. So now we have everybody can get off the tee and then it just makes the game so much less interesting and really, what is doing I saw there was a Shane Ryan article and Golf Died just this week about how golf doesn't have any needle movers. Well, you know why, because dominance greatness in golf is being obscured by equipment. And the sooner we rain this stuff back, the sooner we make the driver hard to hit again, the sooner we'll
know who the actual superstars of the sport are. So I'm just so out out on this new driver technology and the idea that the world's best players have clubs that you can hit it anywhere on the club base and have it go out of the park. And I don't want to make a crazy comparison to steray baseball, but that's the same thing.
It was.
It was like, oh, a broken bat home run for the guy that was juiced up right, Like this is insane. You shouldn't be able to just neck it and have it go three twenty. Bring back distance dispersion with the driver. I think that's the big thing that you see with the old clubs is that there was a chance the ball might go to sixty. If you hit it on the nuts, it's going to go to ninety, but you had a thirty yard there's no distance dispersion.
Now totally agree Andy, I mean anecdotally, I could not hit a driver in high school and now with a modern driver, like I'm pretty good with my driver, and
it's not because my swing's a lot better. There was a moment during the Farmer's Insurance Open where within like a two minute span you had a commercial for the Callaway AI Smoke this new driver, which literally says they show the visual of the driver and they show all these different circles where you can hit on the driver head and they say in the commercial whether you hit one off the toe, heel high or low, there's a
speed spot there. And then within two minutes there's Xander Shaftley hitting the AI smoke in the event and he kind of one hand finishes the driver. He doesn't strike it well and it goes like right past Tony Fenow's ball, who had just hit one that he hit pretty well. Like it's right in front of your face that you don't have to hit the center of the club face
and they're advertising it. So I agree with you, Like, maybe for the amateur that's fine, but at the professional level, I think it's extremely distasteful and promoting it as if it's a good thing. I think it's clearly taking away from the skill in the sport. So wholeheartedly agree with you. I'm out on that too.
All Right, Well that's it. Let's get to Shane Baker and Anthony Kim. But first let's talk a little bit about Club TFE. This is our membership offering for the Friday. If you're unaware, if your first time passer by here, we cover a wide range of things. Last week we debuted a new Wednesday piece that covers the golf the professional Golf Tour. On top of we've got kind of a couple other things you can expect every week. The first is Design Notebook by Garrett Morrison, where he dives
into all kinds of design trends. I jump in there every once in a while to other members from our team jump in there. You've got a course profile in depth writing on a golf course every week. And then we have our new Tour Guide, which you are a big contributor of, Joseph as well as Brendan. I might jump in there every once in a while. It's gonna give you stuff to watch, give you stuff to get you excited for the week in golf. Anything on Tour Notebook, Tour Guide.
Well, there will be something on Pebble this week, right in advance of the AT and T Pebble Beach programs, So yeah, I'm excited about it. We're gonna give a little insight on what kind of players should do well at a given course, some interesting anecdotes about tournament's history, maybe something funny. It'll be a fun spot to learn about golf. But it's also gonna be a fun comment section. So I'm excited about it. Yeah.
So, anyways, the club tfe offering. Really, if you're looking for more from us, you want more content from us, this is this is your spot. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year and it just goes to supporting us making great content. So if you're interested, go to the fridagg dot com slash membership and you can find out all the information there. Now let's get to Shane and our Anthony Kim discussion. All right, Shane, welcome on big News. I'm excited to talk in depth about this.
Big news last week was Anthony Kim is mulling a return to golf, potentially live, potentially the PGA Tour. Obviously, Anthony Kim, for the vast majority of our adulthood, really like post college life, has been a bit of an internet folk hero. You know, we had we had Anthony Kim in our early twenties and Joseph, you know, you had Anthony Kim in your teen years you're coming of
age years. But he's been gone for a while, and you know, the last week I've really been rebooting some Anthony Kim memories thinking about his golf game in detail, and I figured that would be a good exercise. It is, to really go in depth as to who Anthony Kim was, our favorite memories from the Anthony Kim years, and then you know, kind of talk about who he might be
if he comes back. You know, what, what type of player would he profile as if we took his stats from yesteryear to translate him to today, what type of you know, how we would rank the world scheme if he came back with no rust, which you know, it's a fascinating topic and it'll be interesting to see in the coming days or weeks if he ends up being you know, returning to golf. I would guess it's going to be live. But we can talk more about that later.
What do you guys, just before we get really in depth, what are your guys memories of Ak?
Well?
Andy, I just want to say I was reminded via Twitter I wrote a mail bag for foxsports dot com back in twenty sixteen, So what's that eight years ago? The headline the mail bag was what would break golf media or a Tiger win or an Anthony Kim return to the PGA Tour. Unfortunately, as I go to click that link, it's dead So this is how far back Anthony Kims stories go as you get dead link. So yeah, I mean, listen, this has been something we've talked a
lot about, Joseph. I know, again not in your age your age range necessarily, but for Andy and I. I think Andy's thirty eight, is that right?
Andy thirty seven? You're thirty seven almost I'm approaching thirty eight.
So I mean this guy's like literally right in the middle of you and I. I mean I'm forty and your thirty seven and Ak thirty eight. So when you talk about the next thing after Tiger, when Tiger burst on the scene and we were a little younger, maybe then we'd been kind of formidable years, if you will. AK was kind of our guy, even before Rory McElroy
and Jordan's speeds. So for you and I, I mean, the Anthony Kim return has always been something we have at least, you know, hoped to see in some capacity.
Yeah, I mean, it's it's been a topic and obviously there are a lot of factors into this, and we'll get into them all, but I figure what would be really instructive is a little bit of Anthony Kim background. I got. I got in the weeds. This brought back some memories of the Shotgun start spotlights that Brendan and I literally text about every month about bringing back you know. But I got into the weeds found some really really
great articles. The really the best article about Anthony Kim that I would urge everybody to go read, and a lot of stuff that I'm going to go through here is from is Tom Callahan's Golf Digest article. One of the greatest golf writers of all time, Tom Callahan, and he did an unbelievable profile, I believe, in two thousand and nine on Anthony Kim. So let's get into some ak basics. He's thirty eight years old. As Shane mentioned, he was the son of two Korean immigrants, and he
was born in Koreatown in LA. His parents like were not obviously well off, but they owned a spice shop in LA that became like pretty popular and they accumulated like pretty substantial wealth. He was promising player, and the parents had enough money that they were able to buy a second house in Lakita. So at age sixteen, I think this is just like a great intro story about Anthony Kim at age sixteen, he was living basically on his own.
His his mom would go out every week and basically make meals for the week. You know, you see that obviously on social media now where you know you cook something on Sunday for the whole week, like you know, you basically prepackage all your lunches. His mom was coming out and making him lunch for the week and then going back home. He's sixteen years old, living at PJA West playing golf every day.
It's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, So he his parents would visit on the weekend and that was he was on his own during the week. Like any parent out there, just think about the craziness of this. But this was their dedication to his golf game. They knew that living in the city of la and the the golf that was afforded him was not as conducive as him living in Palm Springs, so they, you know, huge sacrifice for his golf. Here's from m calahan Golf Digest article, and this is this
is amazing growing up in LA This is where Kim resolved. Okay, this is where Kim resolved to choke up on every shot, not really because the cheft was too long, simply because that part of the grip felt good to him. So he he was notorious. He choked up about an inch and a half on every shot. It was just something that you knew from him. Here's Nick Demico, who who was the marshal at the golf course. We're so proud of Anthony. He had a little bit of a rep
when he was nine and ten. What a cocky little bastard he was. No we all loved him. He'd look out at that two hundred and thirty yard sign hanging on the back high back netting and say, someday, I'm going to drive a ball over that fence. I told them is part of my job, Anthony, to make sure balls don't go over that fence. But it's okay with me if you want to try. Here's Ron del Barrio, who was a teaching pro at this little nine hole course or a nine hole par three course they grew
up at. You always knew when Anthony was here because you could hear that unmistakable crack of the ball. Newcomers would turn around and ask who hit that. He barely came up to the waists of the guys. He challenged to two hole matches up one and back down nine for a buck. That's my memory of him here, returning with a smile on his face, waving a dollar bill.
So andy.
It seems like like I remember Natalie goldb was telling me years ago that the two players that made the difference sound with the golf club were Tiger and Adam Scott. When you read through old Anthony Kim's stories, it seems like he was one of those guys as well. I mean I was going through old articles like Phil Mickelson talking about how good he hit the ball golf ball, Rory mclory talking about how so he hit it every single time. Brian Harmon was on with Colton Drew and
they were talking. He was talking about the ball striking when they played together at the Walker Cup at Chicago. Just his ability to hit it in the center of the face at all times was the separator. You know, when you think about him coming up as a junior golfer and a great young player. Was he was the ball striker that great ball strikers envy.
Yeah, yeah, I mean he was. He was electric. Electric. So he went to Oklahoma.
Well, hold on, Nady, real quick, real quick. Just just want to touch the ship Nuck article as well. Ship Nuck wrote a piece about Ak, and he talked a little bit about Ak and his dad's relationship, and there was some Earl Woodsyan situations between Paul Ak's dad and Ak. He once threw a first place trophy away that Anthony had won because he said he didn't shoot low enough even though he won first place. He threw it in
the trash and they had a spat. I believe it might have been when he was in college where the two didn't talk to each other for two years. So there was a lot of that pushing your son as much as you could push them type of situation between dad and son. With Anthony Kim that, you know, it was probably a big part of how he got so great so early. Yet obviously there was some some background battles between the two that they dealt with internally with the family.
Yeah, I mean, I it's interesting the push and pull of youth sports, right, I thought, I don't know if you guys watched that Yannick Centner's speech yep at the at the Australian Open after winning I thought that was amazing, he.
Said, he said, I wish everybody had parents like mine. Basically is such a cool line to say, right, I mean, I know, Joseph, I know you don't have kids, but you know, for Andy and I, it's like raising these little kids. I mean just imagining them saying something that nice and that thoughtful when they're eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty two. I mean that's the dream, right, is that you could
raise them in this perfect way. Yet on the other end, you see so many great athletes that had parents that pushed the hell out of them, you know, I mean it's it's really a push and pool that's tough to tough to battle.
What was the sport? Yanik was so center, you know, his whole thesis behind his parents was they let me do whatever I wanted, and he was. He won some sort of world junior event at age eleven and another sport I'm forgetting right now, and then he's winning the Australian Open at at age twenty two.
I want to say, some skiing or swimming or something.
Yeah that sounds about yeah, like he was great skier, world world you know, like a world class junior skier at age eleven, and then literally eleven years later he's winning one of the Grand Slams at tennis. I'm unbelievable, and I think, like real, you know, uh should be real fuel for allowing kids to experiment play different sports.
Andy on the maybe I'm getting ahead of us a little bit, but on the Anthony Kim part of this is because amateur data isn't as good when you go back that far. But can you paint a little bit of a picture of how hyped of a prospect Anthony Kim was going into Oklahoma? Are you Maybe you're getting into that in some of his amateur accolades. But that's something that's still unclear to me because there's this conversation now of it was Anthony Kim overrated? And do we
overglorify him when we looked back at the time. So curious, how if you can paint the picture of his early amateur career leading in he was, I mean, he.
Was, like all he was legitately great, great prospect, huge boom going to Oklahoma. And when he gets to Oklahoma, immediately one of the best college golfers in the country, like.
All American all three years, right, all three years, all American, best scoring average in Oklahoma history at the point at that time.
Right, yeah, So here we go. So he's three time All American two thousand and five Walker Cup. He turned pro in two thousand and six after three years at Oklahoma. His last year he was a second team All American. And we'll get into why Tom Callahan article again. In college, Kim hardly has to say. Kids drink every single day. That's what I did. When you're in college, you feel invincible. You don't have to make a tea time because you're on full scholarship at OU. Whether you go to class
or not, it doesn't matter. I tried to go to class as little as possible. What was his major? I majored in. Not picking a major, he says, I just kept it undeciding, bidding my time until I turned pro. He planned to spend just one year in Norman, mainly to please his mother, but she wheeled two more out of them. However, in Anthony's third and final year, he went a little haywire, which is to say, backward, not
so much on the merits as on the demerits. Kim slipped from first team All American to second How could I be second team? He thought at the time. In one of the best fields we played all year, I won by eight shots. Before that, another good field I won by seven. But he says, now, it's also true that I was a bench for a few tournaments. I don't know, probably five tournaments, and I said stupid things all the time. I still say soup the things. The bottom line it's taken me a while to come to
this is that it was mostly by fault. You can't screw up yourself if that expect the best from someone else. So just like, I mean, he's just golf everything second to partying. When he gets to college and he's still just dominating college.
I mean, you talk about foreshadowing for you know, the big moments of his careers, and I know we'll get to Alan Be in a bit, but I mean the fact that he you know, we joke, I know, we've joked at times about if there was like a booze tournament for professional golfers, who would win. It feels like Anthony Kim would have been the heavy favorite in that department.
Ship Nuck in his article about ak I think he said he had a double major at Oklahoma and it was girls and partying, you know, I mean, that's obviously was the focus, you know when he was in Oklahoma was he was going to party first. He was gonna play great golf second. And he knew even with party and the great golf was going to come because that's how talented he was.
Yeah, it's the talent was is unbelievable. So he he turned pro in two thousand and six. In his first event, he gets a sponsor's exemption into the Vivalero Texas Open. He finishes second sixty five.
In the final round to nearly win.
Eric actually won that week and he said, Andy, I don't know if you have this, but he said after that, the second place finish, he said, that was the worst thing that could have happened to me, was what he said, because he said he liked shiny things. And I think he got like two hundred and fifty thousand dollars check for second place, and he said nothing could have been worse for him right out of the gate than than playing that well in his first PGA Tour bet.
So this is the Callahan Digest article speaking of headaches, Anthony wasn't finished with the vodka. In two thousand and six, previewing the PGA Tour at two stops, so he only got two sponsor exemptions. Kim had either the good or bad fortune to succeed instantly, debuting at the Valero Texas Open on his sponsor's exemption. He finished tied for second and earned three hundred grand. Until that moment, Anthony wasn't completely sure he could make a living with his golf clubs.
This may sound crazy, he says, but at the Vallero I kind of figured it out. After that, and for a long while he was a little too sure. That first year, I didn't know what happened. It was a train wreck of a year. I did everything wrong he could possibly do. I didn't deserve to keep my card. I don't know how many golf balls I hit in two thousand and seven, but it couldn't have been in the thousands. Sometimes I would hit ten for a week. I'd just play the tournament. And that's not me, that's
Carlos Franco. Carlos Franco so funny. I need to hit golf balls and loosen up and go through my routine. I didn't do that. I stayed out every night. Everyone saw it. I didn't respect the game. I didn't respect myself. On a hungover day, he'd sit back and reflect, what are you doing? But he knew the answer. You're screwing off instead of working, and then you're tired. For the next three weeks. To try and take some of that tiredness away, you go out on the town again looking
for a rhythm. Now you're two months tired, exhausted as shame. And that's how my year went. So he does those two sponsors exemptions and then he got his card through Q School, so he finished tent thirteen in Q School. That's how he played two thousand and seven. So he kind of like at the end of two thousand and seven, turt kind of started to take golf more seriously and one person that he went to to help out was Marcomira.
Well and Andy, not to interrupt you, but I think one interesting the two thousand and seven season and how you described it as a catastrophe. He still played like decent and golf by other people's standards, like he was somewhe around thirtieth and strokes gained for the season, made twenty cuts in twenty six starts, hit four top ten, so not like the prolific career that he would have the next year. But it wasn't like two thousand and seven,
he missed every cut. Like, it's interesting to look at his stats compared to maybe how it was described and how badly he says he hit the ball because it wasn't a complete disaster. Articles about him being one of the best rookies of the year, And I think that's.
An interesting thing with this whole dif Like people look back now at the stats and be like, well, look at these bad years, and here it's like, yeah, I went out out every night, I partied every night, and like that would be a detraction if you just looked at the stats, right, This is the context behind the stats, is some of what was going on in his life.
And then the back half, like we only have a couple good years of ak like to look at because then he had the injuries, right, and that's where we've gotten to now, Like that is the story till now, is the injuries, the time away. But like there's only a couple good years. So so two thousand and eight is his big year where he kind of bursts on the scene and he became the first player to win twice in a year under the age of twenty five since Tiger and he got to six in the world rankings.
But you know, the big thing in this is from the Calahan piece is like he kind of started to clean up his lifestyle and he went to Mark o'meira. So of course Mark was the first veteran to throw an arm around Tiger. Was because of my relationship with Tiger, he says. I'm constantly asked who's the next young player coming along. I've been hard pressed to come up with a name. You know, Bill Haass is a nice player. There are a number of good talented kids out there.
But after I played three rounds with Anthony, I picked up the phone and called Tiger. This kid I've just finished playing golf with, I said, is the second best young player I've ever seen come along. Anthony acknowledges I don't have any swing thoughts. I'm not smart enough to have a lot of swing thoughts.
Well, I mean, there was like a famous there was a famous moment where he's at a clinic or something with Tiger, and I think Tiger was like talking through the fifty things that go into a good golf swing, and then they turned to Ak and it was like literally kind of like the Tin Cup moment. Where he's like grip it or rip it, you know, after the long point he renee Russo it's like that was the way AK kind of thought about the golf game was.
You know what's interesting, Joseph was, I feel like Anthony Kim was extremely ahead of his time in the way he played golf. Hit it as far as he could hit it, hit drive all over the place, and he never shied away from a flagstick. Obviously that was a big part of some of his success was there was no fear in the game. And when you hear about those types of players, Phil talked a lot about it with Ak when he was asked about it, like Phil was like, this, dude is not scared of any flag.
And that's coming from Phil Mickelson, who for twenty five years was never scared of a flag.
You know, well, it's interesting you say that because I have I agreed to an extent, and then there's some ways in which I disagree. Don't have his detailed of data going back then, but one thing I noticed, some of the unbelievable volatility obviously in his life but also on his scorecards. To me, it does probably scream of somebody who was ahead of his time with some of the speed and some of the distance, but with the not being scared of flagsticks. I would guess there were
a lot of over aggressive decisions. I see like double bogies on par five's like some big numbers, tons of birdies. So I would probably say from like a course management perspective, he was probably behind on some of the conservatism with his approach shots, but agree with the speed and the
aggression off of the tea. But it clearly looks to me like somebody that could have benefited from some better encourse decision making, which seems to be kind of go along with the general theme of having I think.
The times though the times like course strategy and decision making like this was part of development of a tour pro like now for sure with the systems like the
shot link data. This was pre shot link data. You didn't understand like it was like people's peaks were late twenties, early thirties, because that's when you like start to naturally figure out not to aim at flags, Like I like have this belief you figured that out as a golfer, but you know, now kids are figuring it out because they're being taught that at high school levels.
Right, it's andy.
It's also a skill. I mean, I think it's a skill to hit away from flags. I think aggressive players, you know, in human nature, see a flag and even if they're aiming away at it, in their mind the back of their head, they're thinking, you know, if the pins on the left side and there's water left and they're thinking of themselves, am thirty feet right, the aggressive mindset still wants to pull that shot right. And so that's actually a skill set to not in a way
kind of blank the flag out from your brain. And I think it's one of those things that if Ak had played another six seven years consistently, he probably would have got a lot more comfortable.
With doing that.
You know, Like Tiger was one of the great players ever at conservative great shots, right, Yeah, people always think about Tiger as this dudeh would knock down flag sticks. Tiger was unbelievable at aim in twenty feet away from a flag in hitting it there.
Totally agree Shane, and I think it requires a level of maturity and humility to aim away from a flag a little bit. And I was going back through some of his scorecards.
Not a lot of humility in the scorecards.
There's a lot of double bogies and birdies, And I think this gets talked about. College coaches allude to this, but when they see that upside that players are making eagles on par fives, and it's easier to clean up some of those double bogies and turn them into pars than it is to you know, coach, somebody's ceiling when they're making those eagles. So I think Anthony kim it kind of screams of that type of profile. So that and again lines up with his personality.
Yeah, it's it's I don't know, it's interesting to think about him as in a different era. I think, like we see this with almost all professional athletes two thousand and eight, Like give you compared to NBA players, Like NBA players today are so much more mature, Like they're so much more ready to handle, you know, being a
professional athlete. And across the board in all sports, we've seen like the maturity and the professionalism of athletes get so much higher, right, Like there are just and I think like with golfers, it's the same thing, like we see like look at Ludwig Obert, right just comes right on, He's ready to go like, there's just so much more information and help to make these transitions than there there was, you know in at this time, right.
And he can I throw something at you that I'm almost positive Joseph's not gonna remember. And I definitely didn't remember until about forty five minutes ago.
Do you remember a show called Shaq Versus? Do you remember this at all?
Yes, you do, vague very vaguely.
Shack Versus was a show that Shack put on with ABC where he would battle other athletes at their own sports. This was Shack's goal was to say, I'm the best athlete in the world, okay, and he would like he threw footballs against Roethlisberger in one of the episodes. Now, he was terrible. He would lose every single time, but
he did do it. A match on Shaq Versus. It was Shaq and Anthony Kim versus Charles Barkley playing left handed because he had such bad yifs that he had his swing lefty off the tee and his short game was righty. He played with Bubba and Ak and Shaq want in a playoff hole. Shaq made like a thirty foot curler and Ak went up to him to get all fired up. Shack almost went and jumped in the pod. I was watching highlights this morning of it. But like
this was the celebrity of ak. Was this show where Shaquille O'Neal, you know, in the in the mid two thousands was as big a deal as that existed in sports, both physically and just his terms of his presence. He's picking Anthony Kim to be his partner on the show.
So that's in his prime, he is, that's a very end of his prime, really right right, he's still playing in the NBA into like two thousand and nine. He had the weird thing I think he was.
I think this was when he was on the Celtics. By the way I think Jack versus existed was he was a Celtics Shack.
He had the Suns and Celtics Sarah, so weird.
The Calves Shack. Jersey's got to be the weirdest. But yes, I digress.
Post heaps, Shack is just a weird weird It's kind of like, yeah, all right, so a little bit more on two thousand and eight. It was my best year, he deadpans. As far as understanding myself anyway, not since Tiger had any American under twenty five to one twice on the PGA Tour. Plus Wood says he did it on two great golf courses, Quail Hollow and Congressional.
I knew you'd like that.
Get granted, granted, you think about modern golf courses in professional golf, especially PGA Tour golf, like that's the layout, and he's winning on those kind of big boy golf courses that you know tend to favor long hitters. So I mean, in twenty twenty four, it seems like ak would have existed in a good place with the way golf is.
Right, You want to know who he beat in the Wacovia, which was Quail Hollow and Congressional, which was the AT and T, which was Tiger's.
I think I've got two thousand and I think what Kovia was, Ben Curtis correct.
Yeah, so good?
And then and then at AT and T dusted the junk man freddie Yakobsen.
Oh yeah, captain ball striker. I urge you, Andy.
I don't know if you run the shotgun Start account or Frida Eg's social account, but they used to give out jackets if you won the Wacovia they were these they are so blue. I'd say they are like Duke blue devil blue jackets. And Ak's winning press conference, He's wearing this jacket. It is awful, an awful jacket, and God, I hope he still has it in his closet.
Be a good question if you could ask him if he comes back, you know.
Pres where's the blue jacket? Baby?
Yeah?
Do you have more on two thousand and eight, Andy, Yeah, a little.
Bit more so, he would says he did it on two great golf courses. They're not exactly the easiest courses on tour, and he handled both of them. He's always had the talent. Now he has the experience of winning, and that breeds comp confidence. So that year, Kim wins twice.
He gathered eight top ten to including a second place in three third, climbed his high as six in the world, finished the year six on the money list, and then at h at the Ryder Cup, he makes a big splash Ryder Cup rookie obviously the famous with him with the flag around him. He goes out first in Sunday singles and absolutely dust Sergio Garcia, just the American nemesis. He beats him. I think five and four in that in that match what.
Walks by the way, that's that matches on YouTube. If you want to ever want to watch something late at night and you're missing out on something as football kind of wraps up, It's a great watch. I watched it this summer, but I don't know if you guys remember this. Ak didn't realize the match was over and was walking to the next screen and they had to like wave them back over. Jose, Maria and Sergio are actually laughing as he was literally like pounding pavement to go after me.
I think I made about a ten footer to win the match and had no idea that he'd won the match. But I was diving a little into this Sandy about that moment that Ryder Cup, and there was some great Zinger stuff on Ak said he was our team leader, chip on the shoulder guy, you know a lot of that stuff he talked about. But he said he kept saying, I want to play Sergio. I want to play Sergio
zing let me play Sergio. I'm gonnahoop his ass for you today, Captain, is what he said on the first t and Zinger said after the match ended, the first thing he said to him on the green after they all shook hands, he said, I told you I was gonna whoop his ass, like he wanted the best young European player, and he absolutely waxed the floor with them. So, you know, you talk about moments in his career outside of the Masters, I'm sure we'll get to eight.
Was the moment like that was when Anthony Kimberly.
Arrived, huge, huge moment. This is the pinnacle really of his career. This two thousand and eight. I'm just gonna run through the rest of this here. So two thousand and nine, the big.
Andy all on one second, Joseph, Joseph, do you have eight stats for him? Just like how good he was statistically or anything like that.
Well, so I'll get to a little bit of that, I guess when when we talk about profiling with current player. But the only other notes I had on two thousand and eight that I thought were interesting yet some of the power courses, Quail Hollow Congressional gets his wins. He also finished runner up at Harbortown And like, that's right, not a course that you traditionally think of as being a bomber scores. It's not right it's more of a positional course, good short game, so interesting to see him
do well there. And then I just thought the Tour Championship leader board was pretty funny. At East League in two thousand and eight, you had Camilla Viegas beat Sergio in a playoff, Phil and Anthony Kim were tied for third, and then fourth place or fifth place was four shots behind them. So just like not Anthony Kim's year was really impressive and he didn't just show it in his two wins. I mean, he's a solid year throughout.
Wait, wait, did he start at six under or.
I believe it was a real tournament back then where everyone started at the same score.
Okay, I just wanted to ask that leaderboard. Was that actually that great leaderboard? It's not just you know, was it just doctor to get that?
Right now? Okay, answer your question. He was he Anthony Kim strokes gained like the raw unadjusted for strength to field, but he was gaining one point five to five strokes per round. In two thousand and eight, he was third on tour, So uh elite.
That's uh yeah, it's something I two thousand and eight, that's the year to hold on to, right, so two thousand and nine, early two thousand and nine, makes eleven birdies in the second round of the Master, shoots sixty five. This could be you know, this could be like to Joseph's point, And maybe some of these birdies were because he was firing at every flag. Made eleven, but he probably made a lot of bogies. He shot sixty five.
I think he made two bogies in a double, by the way, is what he did that day.
I got a lot of stuff on this round. Do you want to hear it?
Yes? Yeah, So he finished his third in that Masters. He beats an Nick Price's ten birdie record at Augusta, Nashville, So real quick.
Who do you do?
You guys remember who he played with in that round? Second round and he made eleven birdies.
Sorry, great, he finished He finished third in the twenty ten Masters correct correct nine.
He finished twentieth.
Yeah, when when he made the eleven birdies, he shot seventy five I think in the opening round, you know, he didn't play great.
Then makes the eleven birdies playing.
Alongside This is great for your little golf jeopardy class. Rio Ishikawa and a very young Rory McElroy. Wow, Rory up close, got to see the eleven birdies.
There's a great story.
I believe it was a to Share article about him talking his smiley about this at one point and he said, I got to see it up close. It was crazy. Did not birdie two? So doesn't birdie the second hole, the par five. And maybe the most impressive part about this the second round scoring average that day at the Masters seventy four eight four, the highest to be all week seventeen players in the field of ninety six broke Paul. Three of those rounds were under seventy and he shoots
He shoots sixty five with eleven birdies. He birdied one, three, five, six, seven, eight, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and made a twelve foot on eighteen to break Nick Price's record.
Crazy crazy stuff.
It's actually like one of the great rounds that could also be considered a psycho scorecard, just with the double and the two bogies in there.
Just unbelievable, unbelievable to make eleven birdies, Like I wonder how many birdies I wish I would have done this. He made en Root to a T twenty tournament, Like, but.
That's what I'm saying, like that's what all of his scorecards look like. The Tour Championship in two thousand and eight, he has a sixty four and a seventy two in that tournament, Like that's what a lot of his results look like. It's on brand.
So that year also he goes three and one at the President's Cup, the famous the famous match. Probably I think that probably the most enduring ak memory for me is this run in with Robert allenby none other than Robert Allen B, everybody's favorite Australian golf legend, stayed out till four, beat him what he allegedly allegedly stayed out till four and was deemed to be by Allen B sideways, And I.
Think he came out and he said he shot did you say he shot sixty six and smoked me five and three or something. I mean it was some crazy round of golf that he put together.
Yeah, just just laid laid the wood on him, just just smoked Allen B. And then, like to make the best part of this whole story is that they then met again in the World Match Play like a month later, and he beat Allen B.
He drubbed him again. He just smoked him again in the World match play, and like Allen B at this time is like a top ten player. Like this is everybody thinks about, like Allen B when he's getting kicked out of you know, Quad City Casinos, and the obviously the the incident at the Sony, the alleged kidnapping, but that might have been just Allen B sideways at four am. Everybody thinks about that stage of ALLENB was like a certified like top top tier ball striker for a number
of years. Like you can look go look at like ball striking stats from the mid two thousands and it is just like Robert Allenby, Robert ALLENB, Robert allen B, Robert ALLENB. Every year, so impressive wins especially, you know, given the circumstances. So final tour win comes twenty ten, the Houston Open. This is right before the Masters that he finished finished third in. So he wins the Houston Open.
He becomes the fifth player in thirty years to have won three times on the PGA Tour before the age of twenty five, the others being Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott Bona FIDE Hall of Fame list.
And Andy that was around the time, and you know you mentioned that was like a refocus for him when he turned pro and went a little wild. There was also a refocus going into twenty ten. He apparently went to Vegas with his caddy and his coach and some buddies and they had this whole recommitment to golf and
to practicing and to get into better shape. And in the ship Nut article, he said Ak wanted to buy I think it was like a Ferrari and a Porsche, but he said he couldn't do it because he had to be able to see sit four people in the car so they could all go do stuff together, like refocusing on golf. So they said he had to get a car that had four seats in it. But twenty ten, going into that season was when Ak kind of said
enough is enough. Let's let's find a little bit more, you know, let's focus a little bit more on what I'm trying to do, you know, for a career. And you saw it a lot, and especially in his early early season play there.
Yeah, so he finished third, then two, and then also you know, you know who is in the final group of the twenty ten Quail Hollow. Who was it Rory and Ak?
Final group?
Yeah, it was first tour one for Rory.
That's when he shot sixty one or whatever.
It might not have been final group, but final round. They were paired together.
Okay, Anthony Can finished what tied for seventh in that event.
So yeah, but probably just final round.
And by the way, just just one note on twenty ten Masters, I know you mentioned him finished third shot sixty five, final round there went on a run on the back where he birdied thirteen, BIRDI fourteen eagles fifteen, birdied sixteen and had a real chance there by the way, at that point, I think at the time when he made that eagle, he was a shot off the lead.
So there was real buzz if you go back and watch that final round, there was real buzz around you know, the second nine there at the Masters that Ak might actually get this thing done.
So after that, effectively, that's when the injury started hit. That's when the thumb injury. And it was really from there like kind of a downward kind of spiral at that point, and really we didn't see it wasn't really a downward spiral. It just was kind of over.
I think there's a coincides with a pretty big drop in his driving distance, which you can imagine. And I don't know exactly when the driver yips really start, but I feel like that's become another trademark of Anthony Kim's career, is kind of getting the driver yips towards the end of his competitive career. Do you remember when that officially started? I mean the driving numbers start to get bad around mid twenty ten.
Yeah, I mean that was the thumb injury, right, he talked about how he couldn't practice. So twenty twelve shipnuk SI article that may Kim vented his frustration to Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press, I hear it all the time across the locker room doors. I hear people what's going on with him. I hear a little comments he doesn't care about golf. Everyone has a reason to explain my struggle struggles. Well, no one knows the reason but me.
I need to hit balls to practice, but I'm hurting myself by hitting more balls, so you can't practice, right, I.
Mean, I know it's way lesser. I know it's a way lesser version of the guy I'm going to compare him to, but God, there's a lot of comps to Tiger with this guy. I mean, battling off the core stuff, yet still able to focus on the golf course and play elite level golf, hit it a lot longer than a lot of people could lean on the driver, and then you know, battle the injuries where he couldn't practice the amount he wanted to practice to continue to improve,
get better and find a way to be competitive. And you know, Andy, I know we mentioned Rory a couple times, but it was literally as Ak was kind of peeking and then starting to fall off, was the moment that Rory was becoming Rory McElroy. And it was almost like he just missed that youthfulness of Sergio because he was five years younger than Sergio, you know, so he was playing Sergio as the young European, yet he just missed out on the true young European who was Rory at
the time. So it was almost like he was just in this kind of very very small bubble between that Tiger Phil VJ. Sergio burst out of the scene, and then that new crop of guys like Jordan. I mean, I think he got his PJ Torquard oft of Q School at Jason Day. I think Jason Day got his card the same year or just missed out the same year that Ak got through Q School, So that gives you a good idea of the age of the players he was battling with.
Yeah, it's I mean, he was the precursor really to Rory and Ricky. He was like, I think we we talk about youth on tour and it was him, Jason Day, Rory and Ricky were that new crop, and he was right at the forefront. He was the the that young talent, that young Tiger Woods inspired talent really is Anthony Kim
is right at the front line of it. And that's probably like what should be as enduring legacy is like he was the first of that youth wave, Right, It's like the it's like the high school kids in the NBA draft a little bit, right.
Yeah, there's that one generation of those guys that we're all going to remember and think about, the Garnett's, the Kobe's. This guy can't play. What is Kobe doing coming out of the draft early? And obviously he kind of battle himself and it worked out. And I feel like for Ak to your point in that story about wanting to spend one year at Oklahoma and his mom wanted him to stay a little bit longer. I mean, this was a guy that kind of saw the future ahead of
everybody else, and he knew how talented he was. And it just feels like Joseph As You're diving into the numbers and they're so small, right, you don't have a lot to go on, and they're not nearly as in depth as twenty twenty four data. But looking at who Ak was on the golf course, I pulled up his stuff this morning.
I mean, this.
Dude's like top five, not just top ten, He's like top five in these important categories in his prime, you know, kind of across the board.
It's pretty impressive.
Yeah. Well, I don't know, Andy, if you have much more that you want to wrap up.
I just have a little bit of aout, like the space from from twenty twelve till now, which is like injuries, it's just been right, injuries and then obviously the insurance policy. So like the main reason that is believe they never made a return was he took out an insurance policy against injury where he was paying pretty significant amount for this premium, it's rumored to be upwards of ten. I think like people are saying ten now, but it was
believed to be more like twenty. I think from what I read like in the moment, I don't know what it ends up being. Where then he started to receive monthly payments from this insurance policy and if he returned to professional golf, then the insurance policy is void. He has to pay back the amount. So that's been one thing that's kept him out of this and what is attractive with live But like, let's go so twenty twelve ship Nut article. How's Kim spending his time these days?
Lots of Sports Center, says his friend, Lots of Golf channel. Kim's relentless relentlessness is palpable. He still has a passion, says the friend. He always is talking about golf. He wants to be out there. He misses it. In fact, on Thursday through Sunday, Kim is usually in front of a TV monitoring tour telecast. It's kind of sad to see, says the friend. Sometimes I want to grab him, shake him and yell, what the hell are you doing? You're Anthony Kim, Get off the damn couch and get out
there and find your game. That's an interesting quote with the find your game, right, because then in twenty fifteen there's a Doug Ferguson article AP and I think there are the Palm Desert Report Golf reporter help with this a little bit too. Anthony Kim got interviewed. I didn't actually,
I didn't have a recollection of this article either. Okay, so he said, I'm going to step away from the game for a little while and get my body pieced together instead of going from an Achilles' injury to try and to try to go one eighty miles per hour and not fixing the problem. I've got so much ground to make up from injuries rotator, cuff, labram, spinal few. I did not know that hand injury. I've had six or seven surgeries the last three and a half years.
I had no recollection of this article or the spinal fusion like that's I mean, that's obviously we know everybody knows spinal fusion because of Tiger, But like if he had a spinal fusion, I mean that that's a whole new thing to discuss with like the prospects of him coming back right. He said he's getting monthly payments from insurance policy took out five years ago in case he was injured, but he denied speculation that the policy was a factor that it was keeping him from returning to
the PGA tour. I paid well into the mid six figures for this policy, said they wouldn't have paid me every month had I had not been to the doctor showing them all my X rays, doing all the treatment, the acupuncture twice a day for physical therapy. He also explained his abrupt departure from Quail Hollow after shooting seventy four.
Back in to twenty twelve. Kim said he ignored his summons for drug testing when he walked to the parking lot, though he eventually was tested, so he got a bad rap because people said he was trying to duck out from a drug test. I was mad about how I played. I injured myself again. I ended up coming back and taking the test. He said. I've never tested positive for anything since I've been on the PGA tour whenever the drug testing started. Never, and they tested me more than anyone.
These rumors tainted my reputation and I didn't have a great one to begin with. Kim had no idea he would be gone this long. He played golf with Phil Mickelson at Madison Club in the California Desert. He rented a house in San Diego to prepare for the twenty thirteen season. He said he was up at five am every day to train when his achilles achilles tendon popped. Once he recovered from the leg, he had a herniated disk, and the injuries piled up. Golf moved on without him.
He has a major medical exemption he can use if he ever returns. Kim would have to earn one hundred and thirteen thousand and sixteen events to keep his car. And then last thing Chris got her up was on the subpar Pod. You know who is actually like best friends with Ak His closest friend Kasey Witberg, right, Well, that and Colt Nohosed.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Colt was close with him.
Yeah, so he's the host of the subbar Pod. Apparently like he kind of like ghosted Colt. I saw that in the Shipnuk article where he was you know, Colt was like, I haven't really talked to him since he left his I haven't seen him, and they were apparently like the best friends. So it'd be interesting to hear Colt talk about that if if they ever, if they kicked to it on like the broadcast or something, or on the subpart pod which got Chris got her up
Oklahoma legend, who's a rookie on the PGA Tour. The one thing got her up did reveal is that, according to his coach, Ak now thirty seven still has some serious game. He said, even to this day, when Kim comes up and hits balls, it's almost sad because he still has He's still so good good and no one is able to see it. But he said Kim was also a freak of nature. He was so good. So
it's interesting. Maybe he's been in Norman hitting balls like and I bet they have like you know, like those college programs have these tests, like they know they measure against all this stuff. I'd be curious if Hibbel, the coach at Texas, has like some fairly recent AK numbers, like how he compares to some of his players, some tour players. So that's it.
Yeah, i'd heard so one of the one of my stories that i'd heard. You know, I grew up in East Texas. Still have somebodies that live in the Dallas area and one of my favorite Ak rumored stories. Obviously this is coming from friends that know people, but I think it was about five or six years ago. And as the story goes, Ak was at a bar with some buddies and a little bit like in the scene in Nodding Hill, you know when he's out to dinner with Julie Roberts and the table next to it's talking
about Julia Roberts character and she goes over. Apparently there was some guys sitting near Ak talking about Anthony Kim, the legend that is Anthony Kim, and much like in the Notting Hill movie, they started to talk about all the reasons he didn't play golf, and I guess it
started to piss Ak off. And he'd spent apparently spent the next month like eight nine hours a day on the golf course practicing, and he was going to come back and make a return, and his friends basically said, you're gonna have to make you know, thirty million dollars on the tour to make up for what you've taken
from this insurance policy. His friends being kind of the sounding board, if you will, to make sure he didn't take a return and have to give the tour thirty mil and have to make it all up.
But you know, I mean, I think.
That's the thing. The policy was tax free, so went Wright with. So when you do the math of agents, coaches travel all that, like, people are like, oh, it's ten million, ten million or twenty million, twenty million. It's actually what he would have to earn on the Stanley were.
Almost probably double what he got out of the out of the policy. So you know, I mean I said this, I did. I did the Nolan up Wraps show on Saturday Night with KAVV and Porter and I mentioned this on there. We're talking about AK but you know, listen and Joel Beal wrote this for Digest and I agreed with a lot of what he wrote. I mean, we live in this Anthony Kim two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight world right, and it's twenty twenty four.
And I said this on the Nole and up Pod Joseph, because I think it's important to look back at how far, you know, back we go at eight the Ryder Cup team, the moment of Anthony Kim's career, the one we all remember The team he was on was Phil Stuart Saint, Kenny Perry, Jim Furick, Justin Leonard, Ben Curtis, Boo, Weekly Stricker, Mayhan, JB. Holmes, and Chad Campbell. I mean that is that is a tour of the past, right, That is not what modern
professional golf looks like. And the players he was going up against really outside of Sergio, I mean Padrick and Westwood and Incident and Carlson. That's literally it's like he's playing the matter of six Eraser of Palter Paul Casey on that team, Like this was the I mean, this was what OA golf looked like, right, And we're talking about twenty twenty four and the top ten in.
The world being really young, and.
I've seen a lot of the stuff float around to like comparable aged players. I think there were three players in that same age group that won last season on the PGA Tour, Like thirty eight is old and I hope grew, Yeah, like Rose and Brian Harmon is around that age, and that was kind of it, Like this isn't what golf was in eight in a lot of ways.
And the main.
Point of this is people that are dominant and professional golver for right now are between the ages of twenty two and twenty six, and Anthony Kumm is not twenty six anymore.
I mean he's it's.
Important important to There's one outlier, and that's Rory McElroy who continues to remain the a monster off the tee, and I think that's you know, that's the big question about AK. It's like if he's still, if he's if he has gained no yardage or lost yardage, this is we shouldn't even be talking about. It's right.
I would push that prime back a little bit, Shane. I think like twenty two to twenty six feels a little young to me, But I agree with the the broader point that not only is he older, but I think he has now lived through an era that's completely changed, and the last five or six years the speed increases. What's coming on in twenty twenty four, we're already seeing it with some of these young golfers coming out. Expecting Anthony Kim to be strong off the tee, I think
is a bit far fetched. So I'd never want to say never, but I'm not as optimistic about his return. Can I give you the comp that I came up with for who his his player might be, which player he might most closely resemble?
Is this is this a modern player? This is like a current player and professional off current.
Player and professional golf. I was thinking a lot about this. It's really hard because of how short his career is, but I think a golfer that I've actually gotten comfortable. I think this is the correct comparison. The hyped prospect success right away and then a bunch of success once he gets his feet wet. His career didn't turn out as prolific as the golfer I'm going to compare him to. But I actually think Anthony Kim and Justin Thomas have quite a bit in common. And where I was going
with that. Anthony Kim makes his debut in two thousand and six, but his first full season is two thousand and seven, Like that's really when his professional career starts. He gets to world number six within a year and a half, So like October of two thousand and eight, a year and a half into his career, he's world number six. Justin Thomas plays his first full season on the PGA Tour in twenty fifteen, gets to world number eight in two years so January of twenty seventeen, kind
of similar start to their careers. In their first ten Majors, Anthony Kim makes nine cuts, two top tens, and his tenth major championship is a solo third at the Masters, and Justin Thomas's first ten Majors he makes eight cuts, two top tens, and his tenth start is a win at Quail Hollow, where Anthony Kim won his first tournament.
I think the power off of the tea, the ball striking, the success in the team events go sorry, the aggression like the as of their game, the ability to shoot fifty nine like Justin Thomas has Anthony Kim rattling off eleven birdies. I think there's quite a bit of similarity in their games. Obviously, Justin Thomas has gone on to have a monster career compared to what Anthony Kim has accomplished.
So I don't think it's a perfect comparison and how things panned out, but I kind of think from a stylistic perspective and what some of their stats look like, I kind of like that comparison. So I was curious with Andy and Shane what you guys think about that.
One both left left school early.
Yeah, young start.
Yeah. I like that. I think think that's actually like a very like when you think about like what draws people to Justin Thomas Bandam, it is the wide array of shot making, right, There's a there's an electricity to the way he plays golf.
You know, it feels like too.
I mean, you could even dive deeper Joseph past just what they look like on the golf course. I would even go into personality, you know. I mean I feel like Ak. I mean going back to Shaq Versus, which I know is a silly show on TV, but Ak is the guy that Shaq picks to be his teammate. Justin Thomas is one of those guys that seems to translate well with other athletes, right, Other athletes like his style, like his confidence as Bravado, those types of things seem
to work well outside of just the golf room. And it feels like Ak had a lot of similarities in that world, right, the way he carried himself, you know, the way he pulled off golf shots no matter the moment. You hear other athletes talk about Anthony Kim in his prime, and it's glowing responses right. I mean other golfers talking about Anthony Kim and they gush about him, you hear,
you know, some of the older players. I mean, I remember Phil Michelson talking about j T, you know, in that twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen run, and how how impressed he was with JT at such a young age. So it almost feels like just even outside of their games and coming out of college into pro golf, it feels like just his personality people, they had a little more than just your everyday good player on the PGA Tour.
I agree. And the I even think with some of the driver yips, like we've seen Justin Thomas get a little bit stray with the driver Like just looking at their stats high level, they do kind of line up. I mean, when Anthony Kim came on to professional golf scene, he was between tenth and sixteenth in his first three years on tour, and driving distance was pretty consistently around
three hundred yards. Justin thomas first full year was fifteenth and kind of hovered between fifteenth and eighth to twelfth over the first couple of years of his career. I think the profile tracks pretty well, also chokes up on his golf club like AK does. So there you go, there you go.
Maybe maybe maybe JT was you know, he always talks about Tiger, but Ak was actually JT's inspiration.
Right, the true school of hard knocks was just the Ak School of hard knocks for JT.
It would match up, match up age wise, right, true?
So what do you guys think about is comeback? What are realistic expectations?
I mean, that's the hard part is I just feel like it's so unknown. You know, skys take two years off and three years off and you can at least have an idea of who they're going to be on the golf course. But twelve years it's a it's a lifetime. It's a lifetime for pro athletes. Is this here's my question to you guys in this same vein. Is there even a comp to this? Is there a comp to somebody's taken more than a decade away from pro sport and coming back and attempting to be good at it again.
I think there's been times they've taken a year or two off, but not twelve years. I can't think of a single athlete.
That lorenochoa comeback for like a tournament.
I think so. I mean, I think she played in her event right on the LPGA Tour.
Yeah, like after like ten years, ten years away or something like. That's the only only thing that jumps to mind. Like, obviously the Tiger stuff is somewhat instructive, but you're talking about the greatest player ever in like one to two year absences, not twelve years twelve years.
If he had like some bad accident when he was sixteen and he was coming back at age twenty six, I'd be much more optimistic about what this could look like. But he he's thirty eight years old, and the game is way way different now than what it used to be. Like, I think if he got to if he played a full schedule and got to like thirty fifth in the world, it'd be an unbelievable accomplishment. And that feels really far fetched to me.
It seems so tough to do.
I will say this, I mean, if you're thinking about this completely unique situation, right an athlete, you know, stepping away from the game at a young age and try to come back when he's near in the age of forty, there's nothing better for somebody than what live offers right now, you know, you think about the fields are smaller, You've got probably twenty five guys, the guaranteed money. You probably feel comfortable that you can beat twenty guys a week.
Even if you aren't that good anymore, you might be able to beat twenty players. And then if you're you get on John Ram's team. Let's just throw that out there. Let's say he's on rams team in a couple of months and your team wins a couple times throughout the season. Financially, it all makes sense to me. Anthony Kim has always looked like a guy that lived on confidence, and then the moment the injury started to pile up, he was super scared of what coming back might look like. And
we've all been there. We've all taken time away from the gym or running or playing competitive golf or whatever, or dating or whatever the case may be as a human, and all of a sudden, you want to get back in the pool, and you go, I hope I can still do this again. It's scary to jump into that world. But you know, you read the ship Nuck article, Andy, and I mean he ends at that, right, he iNTS at the fact that there was an there was ego
to be smashed. If you're Anthony Kim, if you come back and you suck and you hit it two seventy and you can't compete anymore, then all that's made up about who you were as a pro and the legacy and the hour we've talked about it on this podcast and beyond goes away because the end of your chapter, the end of the book is and he came back to pro golf and he sucked, right, So he's got to at least accept the fact that that could be that could be a thing here.
I think like the popular, the unpopular right answer of all this is Anthony Kim probably shouldn't come back because it's more romantic if he just stays away, and we'll always be able to hold on to that like burst of stardom at a time when Tiger was injured, you know, like Tiger. This was like kind of like he came on right when Tiger started to have the injury off the course issues, right, and he became this ray of
hope and bridged us to Rory McElroy, right. And I think like when you think about it, it's that's the thing that probably makes the most sense is him to stay away, stay this full hero that like left golf too early. And you know, but if he does come back, I think lives the only the only option for him
from the insurance money. You know that I saw trele Hatton just today, got what sixty seven million dollars to go there or something about that if I apologize, it might be sixty three million American dollars to go to live. You know, they could cut him a check for thirty million dollars and you know, and and he could play.
And you think about like, like you said, like those fields are are gettable, right, Like I would have a hard time believing, uh Anthony Kim would be able to go out and consistently make cuts on on the PGA Tour. I think he could be not the worst player on live. He could be one of you know, not he could be above the bottom five on live. When you start to look through the players, I mean, you got West, he's getting into his into into his fifties, like he
is into his fifties. You've got a lot of young guys that are going to be a little volidile, that are learning how to be professional golfers. You've got you know, you just have Graham McDowell, right, Like I think he can play with Graham McDowell at this point in his career, right, Maybe I don't know. We haven't seen much of him, but you start to look through the roster of live players, like the bottom half of Live. The top half of Live now is really good, quite good, but the bottom
half of Live is not is still pretty weak. So it's like, you know, could he go in there and have a finish twentieth and make a lot of money? Yeah, and we're gonna see it. Like I think, like the thing is not not about going out and shooting low rounds. I still think he could go out shoot low rounds if he's a shell of what he used to be. It's it's just stringing together if it's lived, three good rounds right to both of.
Your points, which I think the no cut thing is a very attractive piece of returning to live versus returning to the PGA tour knowing you're gonna get three competitive
rounds psychologically versus getting cut. I think if you're trying to rehab, it's a little easier to go back when you know you're gonna get three rounds and then you know you can take some positive momentum from shooting a good third round score that moves you up six spots, like it's just a little bit easier to rehab under those conditions.
I would say that in terms of the best possible marriage for both Live and Anthony Kim, it's probably Live in Anthony Kim. You know, you think about what Live needs. Live needs something to make us want to watch, right, because they've yet to get a golfer, even with Rom going there, they've yet to get a golfer. I think that's making the everyday golf and want to find it on TV and turn it on no matter what time
zone it's in. And I've got to watch this. Anthony Kim's playing golf and they're playing in Singapore or Australia or Paris or whatever the case may be. I'm gonna wake up and watch that first round. I'm gonna watch that first tournament.
Andy.
I think you said on the shot and Start, you're thinking four to five events. You know they will benefit on the back end of But if you're thinking about Anthony Kim here Joseph's point on the cut is true. But also if he plays terrible then aren't we just gonna forget that he's doing it, Like he'll just be another person that's playing on Live that finishes fortieth. I
mean I don't I don't remember. I couldn't name the bottom fifteen guys to live right now, there's no chance to see what we're able to name it.
Well, that's the bottom guy.
Remember remember when Kobe did the Farewell Tour and this is like I'm not comparing him to Kobe, but like Kobe's out there and it was like big for like certain stops at certain cities, but like for the most part, it's just Kobe playing hero ball every single night. Everything it got really really old, really fast, right, Like yes, yeah, So like with Anthony KIV, like there there will be this like this interest right off the bat. But if he's not competitive, it just is going to be. Oh,
he's playing the spectacle. And this is where if he just never plays again, he will be held in this high regard. Right we talked about that end of Shack's career. This is the perfect example. Like you get these years the Boston Celtics, the Phoenix Suns, you know, like these obscure places they played for, and he just wasn't Shack right.
Can I take the other side of that though, really quickly, Andy, Yeah, isn't what we love about sports though, somebody wanting to defy the odds, not to be overly romantic about it, but and saying, you know what, I do want to come back. And Shane's story about him hearing from another
dinner table that people are doubting him coming back. I think that's also kind of what Live needs is a player that's in it for competitive reasons, not taking a payout, like who's in it to show what they still have? And we've seen Camilla Viegis, somebody who's older than Anthony Kim like Win recently. It's not out of the realm of possibilities. And I think that little glimmer of hope
is what makes Worts entertaining. So even if I'm pessimistic about what it looks like, I'm absolutely here for the show.
Joseph, I would say this, I think it's the first golfer to go to Live that's going to be hungry. I think that's the big part of the Anthony Kin story is every single person that's gone to Lives Belly is full right. They got a big amount of money paid off the top. They're going to this toury either because they're past their prime, or they wanted to check and they wanted to maybe play less golf or whatever. You know, we've heard over the last two years from
all these golfers this. There's an argument to be made that this is the first person that would be going to Live that would be hungry for results.
And that's good.
That's k that's Karen and Vincent slander and I won't stand for it.
I think he made that name up. I think he made that name up.
He won school. I'm just kidding, don't you Darek talk about eu gdo Chakara like that? I just like it.
You know, it would be so fun if he was competitive in golf. But this is as the big a win as Live's gonna ever have. And I said this a couple of days ago. I can't believe this didn't happen off the top. I can't believe Live didn't offer him an insane amount of money off the top to go right when they started, because again, that would have made people watch, and that would have made people care. And as I think about Live in whatever its next iteration,
is gonna be. Why aren't they trying to get more of this? And when I say this, I mean not just pro golfers, Like why not go get John Smoltz and pay him two million a year to play live golf and just so people can say, here's Smoltz, let's see how he compares against actual pro golfers. Like it might it might be a circus act, but at least it's something to it's something different.
Well, I'll disagree that. I think what earnestly Anthony Kim could represent is watching a live tournament and saying, hey, does this golfer have what it takes to win to be competitive in a major? Again, I don't feel that way about somebody like Brooks Koepka, who's been pretty clear that those are regular season events to him, whether it was PJ Tour or live not necessarily an indication of
how he's gonna do in a major. Versus watching Anthony Kim would feel like you're watching it for competitive reasons, and I think that's what live needs. So John Smoltz I wouldn't have that same. I know John Smoltz can't play in a major championship, but if Anthony Kim goes out and puts up some really strong results on Live, four or five of them in a row. Your brain would start to go there, and I think that's what Live needs.
Yeah, I agree. I mean it's fascinating. I think we all agree that lives the only place for him right now.
Andy, did you ever see ak in person? Did you ever see him play in person? Go to a tournament he was in.
I don't think I did. I did not.
I was trying to the bridge then some of the fires.
I was trying to think today.
That's the end of my collegiate life. I would say that that was like the moment in Anthony Kimm's moment in time. Early twenties was when I was most disconnected with the sport. I would watch you know on on the weekend, but I was, you know, I was early twenties, all right.
Feel like I might have seen him in Arizona at one point. I do remember that I went to the Tucson Open when I was in college with my daily Wildcat credential to watch Ty Tryon when he was having his year on tour and followed him for eighteen holes. And that was when he was the Massimo target guy, and that was one of those you know, there was only like fifteen people out there watching him, but I was so fired up to see how he do. But I can't distinctly remember a moment when I saw AK
up close. Maybe I've seen him in Phoenix one time or twice.
I do feel like, you know, what you said about the way players, big big time players talked about Ak is so drastically different than other like flash and like you can't find ty Trion quotes like that. You can't find rio Ishikawa quotes like that, right, Like they are few and far between when you get somebody like Phil
talking like that about somebody. All right, we're gonna we're gonna start a new little segment for this Tuesday or Monday, whenever you listen to this show that we're doing this year. We're gonna have a closing segment here where we just come up with recommendation. So, Shane, you got a recommendation I do.
I do.
This is not sponsored. This is just something I think is excellent. You guys know, electro light water is like a big thing right now. And you pour the packets and stuff in your water, you know that's big. The element mango chili salt one. I know it sounds weird, but James Nitty's got me on this last year during corn Fairy. It's like the best tasting thing I've ever had in my life. And so like, I'm drinking it
right now and you pour it in there. But listen, I know when you think about flavoring, you go a lot of different ways than mango chili for a flavor of your water.
But it is bomb. So that's my recommendation. So that's spicy.
That's element which is l m n T.
Right, Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, l m n T labert open.
Is that what ever?
That's a good that's a good tip. I feel like I've been you know, I've been running a lot lately, and I uh, I've been. I got like, I think I'm having some dehydration issues that at the end end of the day, like I noticed, my back starts to get in sore. So I'm gonna I'm gonna buy some of this.
Well, listen, I'm buying a box right now, and I'm gonna mail it to you right now, So don't buy it yourself. Yes, I'm gonna send you this box right now.
I don't need. I don't need you to buy it.
I don't I know you don't need it to you own a company. But I'm gonna send this to you and you let me know if it's good or not. And if you hate it, just bring it to the masters or whatever. I'm gonna see you next and I'll take it off your hands.
All right, all right, that sounds like a good deal.
Do you guys know your recommendations or no?
Yeah, I got a recommendation, just as you got one. Go ahead, and all right, I got one. My wife she's been doing a bit of a dry January. She's been, she got she got a little too deep in the holidays, she's been, she's been pulling back and I've had I've had a few of these, and they are really good. If you're looking for something that are like a you know, that are just like a non alcoholic thing. She's been
drinking these kin euphorics. They are like, yeah, so it's like a non alcoholic Like it's like a mocktail right where it's got taste, but then it's got like adaptogens. It's like it's not just like sugar, right, it's got good stuff in it. It's got like botanics, uh new tropics in it. But they're really good. They're really tasty, and they have some stuff like they they've got some just it's it's good. It's good stuff. They make you like.
I noticed, like my biggest problem when I try when I go dry, is that like when I go grill, I just need a drink like I not. I don't need an alcoholic beverage. I need just something that's delicious to drink, right. That's why I like the ritual of drinking something. So having like these in the fridge has been really great. You know, it's been It's just a recommendation. I got, Joseph, what do you got?
Yeah, well you guys went with products. I want a slightly different direction Little music Wreck. Early in twenty twenty three, I was super into this album and then kind of put it away for a while and back into it
a little bit. Good vibes. The album is called Proof of Life by Joy a Lot of Coon might not be a name that a lot of people know, but I've seen her live and she's awesome, and it's just something that is a feel good you can throw on in the car when you're feeling pessimistic about the state of professional golf. It'll cheer you up a little bit.
So add it to the Apple Music right now.
And it's a deluxe album. So there you go. I love that.
I'm gonna add it right now.
The Proof of Life called Proof of Life by Joy a lot of Coon, I know who she was. Until this album came out. It was recommended to me by multiple people and I would pass that on.
I can't even find Oh, there it is, there it is. It looks Joe happy. It does look happy, Joseph.
You know what I got.
I got a recommendation yesterday at the gym that blew my mind. Okay, So I was doing planks and there was a lady right next to me. I was doing planks. She said, do you do I got done, and she goes, do you use a timer when you do planks? And I said, yeah, I like do the timer and then when it ends, obviously I can stop. She said that if you do two minute planks, we will rock you.
The Queen song is exactly two minutes and one second long, so she said, listen to that gets you fired up, obviously, puts you in a great place mentally, keeps you you know, keeps the stamina up. You're really really locked into the plank, and then when the song's over, that means you're two minutes is up.
So there you go, there's your plank wreck.
Do you think there's an untapped market for creating songs that are exactly certain time? In her liaer?
I used to make a CD back in the day, a beer pong CD or remember a girl talk? Well, I did power hour CDs. I would make them where you'd condense the song to a minute and you'd make a sixty you know, a sixty minute power hour CD.
I remember making those backs.
Have no clue what making CDs was like?
Do you know I.
Know how to make a CD? This is ridiculous, this is slander.
You've never burned a CD in your life? If you've never had an MP three CD.
No clue burned a CD absolutely.
And after off off of kaza and just and just dialed it in off of iTunes.
What about? What about right when you could, like, I feel like it was like maybe like nineteen ninety nine or nineteen ninety eight is when you could start to like make your own CDs, your own mixed CDs was like all the rage so good.
I used to I used to sell them.
I mean illegally obviously, but I used to sell them at school for ten dollars and I've made a killing off that stuff.
When I was in high school, I was like the.
Only recommendation there, you go.
I was the only person in my hometown I think that had DSL off the top, you know, was like could actually download download songs and it wouldn't take twenty five minutes to download them. Man, I would fire off CDs back in the day. So to all those artists I stole from Metallica and the likes, I apologize. I'm just as bad as as Sean from Napster.
We're setting an interesting precedent for what this segment represents.
The illegalities.
Yeah, well all right, that's it. We'll end there with all of our illegal ripoff practices from our youth. Shane, thanks for coming on talk about AK and making CD mixes and and selling them the business behind it. And Joseph thanks for coming on talking to AK and and we'll talk to you guys too. Thanks