"5,795 Days"
What Anthony Kim's Return Teaches Us About the Seasons We Don't Post About
Redemption stories don’t start when life gets easy.
They start when everything falls apart.
In January 2010, Apple unveiled the iPad. Six months later, Instagram was born. And somewhere in between, a 24-year-old prodigy named Anthony Kim won the Shell Houston Open on the PGA Tour — his third victory in less than three years — and looked every bit like the next face of professional golf.
Then the lights went out.
What followed wasn’t just an injury. It was a disappearance. An Achilles tear in 2012 opened a door that led somewhere dark — years of addiction, depression, and by his own account, thoughts of suicide that haunted him “for almost two decades, even while playing the PGA Tour.” He was ranked sixth in the world at his peak. By 2014, Golf Channel was reporting he no longer even played recreationally. By 2019, he called his game “non-existent.” He became golf’s version of a ghost story — whispered about on message boards, glimpsed briefly at a charity event here, a university fundraiser there, before vanishing again.
5,795 days passed between his last win and his next one.
And then, on a sun-soaked Sunday morning in Adelaide, Australia, Anthony Kim — 40 years old, nearly three years sober, and ranked 847th in the world — went out and fired a bogey-free, 9-under 63 to win the LIV Golf Adelaide event by three shots. Over Jon Rahm. Over Bryson DeChambeau. With a 0.1% win probability on the broadcast.
He stood on the 18th green, champagne swapped for sparkling water in honor of his sobriety, and held his four-year-old daughter Bella while the crowd roared.
“Best moment of my life so far,” he said. “For her to be able to run on the green and see her dad isn’t a loser was one of the most special moments of my life.”
What the Highlight Reel Misses
When we watch a comeback like this, we instinctively want to package it neatly. He overcame adversity. He found his way back. Inspirational.
But here’s what the highlight reel always skips: the years when nothing was working and no one was watching.
Kim didn’t just fight his way back to the leaderboard. He fought his way back to being a father. A husband. A human being who could look in the mirror. Before entering rehab, doctors told him he potentially had two weeks to live. That’s not a golf story. That’s a life-or-death story that happened to have a golf course at the beginning and end of it.
As a sport psychologist, this is where I need you to slow down with me for a moment — because what Anthony Kim’s comeback reveals about the human mind is far more profound than any swing stat or putting average.
The Psychology of Surviving the Dark Season
Research in performance psychology consistently shows that the athletes who sustain through catastrophic setbacks share a common thread: purpose that is bigger than performance.
When your identity is built entirely on outcomes — wins, rankings, validation from others — a single catastrophic injury doesn’t just end a season. It ends you. Because if you are what you do, then when you can’t do it anymore, who are you?
This is what Kim described when he said, “I got so good at hiding it that I lost who I was.”
That’s not just an addiction story. That’s an identity crisis wrapped in one.
The psychological concept here is ego depletion — the idea that when we are constantly performing for external approval, we drain the very mental energy we need to sustain ourselves through hardship. The mental tank runs dry. And without something anchoring us that isn’t dependent on a scoreboard, the fall is catastrophic.
What ultimately pulled Kim out wasn’t a better swing coach. It was God. Family. Sobriety. In his own words: “With God, my family, my sobriety being the key things to my life, I can go as far as I want.”
He found his audience of ONE.
Three Choices That Sustain Redemption
Here’s what I want every junior golfer, every struggling athlete, every parent reading this to understand: Anthony Kim’s story isn’t just about coming back to golf. It’s a blueprint for what the mind does when it’s finally free from the weight of needing to prove something.
Own the Moment. Kim stopped negotiating with the past. The 12 lost years, the surgeries, the lowest days — he didn’t pretend they didn’t happen. He owned them, processed them, and then showed up fully in the present. In that final round, five shots back, he wasn’t thinking about what he’d lost or what he would gain in the future. He was playing today’s round of golf. Four consecutive birdies on 12 through 15. One shot at a time.
Nothing to Prove. In his champion’s press conference, Kim didn’t talk about proving doubters wrong. He talked about his daughter. He talked about gratitude. He said, “Nobody else has to believe in me but me.” That’s not arrogance — that’s a man who finally understood that his worth isn’t expressed through results. It’s expressed through effort, through showing up, through the quiet daily decision to take the next faithful step.
Execute for an Audience of ONE. When your “why” is big enough — a daughter who needs her dad, a God who gave you a talent, a community of people fighting the same fight — the pressure of performance shrinks. Kim wasn’t playing for a LIV trophy on Sunday. He was playing for something he couldn’t even fully put into words. “I knew this was going to happen,” he said. “But for it to actually happen is pretty insane.” That’s the language of a man playing from purpose, not from pressure.
For Anyone in a Hard Season Right Now
I talk with junior golfers every week who are convinced they’re behind. Behind on their ranking. Behind on their development. Behind compared to the girl in the next state who’s already committed to a D-I program.
I talk with parents who are terrified that one bad tournament, one rough semester, one lost year to injury means their kid’s window is closing.
Anthony Kim was written off by everyone. He was relegated from LIV Golf in 2025 — essentially cut from the last tour that would have him — and had to go back to qualifying school just to earn his card back. Six weeks later, he beat the world’s best.
The dark season you’re in right now? It may be the very thing that’s forging something in you that comfort never could.
Don’t wait for motivation. Motivation is a feeling, and feelings are unreliable. Lean on your people. Trust the process. Take the next faithful step.
Redemption isn’t a finish line you cross and then retire. It’s a rhythm. You get tested. You grow. You repeat. This is life.
And the most important thing to understand about Anthony Kim’s comeback — about your comeback — is this:
His win at LIV Adelaide wasn’t the end of his story.
It was the beginning of who he’s becoming.
Your Mental Coach,
Dr. Mat
Dr. Mat Park is a senior sport psychologist and founder of Mental Performance Golf Academy. He works with elite junior golfers and LPGA Tour players, helping athletes find identity-based confidence rooted in purpose, not pressure. Learn more at mpgagolf.com or follow on Instagram @mpga.golf
“For anybody that’s struggling — you can get through anything.” — Anthony Kim, LIV Golf Adelaide Champion, February 15, 2026
P.S. MPGA is on a Built to Bounce Back tour and has partnered with Girls Golf x LPGA | USGA to host a special event for them on March 10, 2026 at 7:00pm (ET). You are also invited to the program. Join us on learn the foundation of resilience and apply it to your next round on and off the course.
RSVP Here: Built To Bounce Back with MPGA and Girls Golf | March 10, 2026 at 7:00pm (ET)