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Anthony Kim regarding drug use: 'It's hard playing in majors making porta potty stops every few holes'
Mark Brake
Anthony Kim posted a lengthy, revealing message to Instagram on Thursday. In it, the former PGA Tour pro turned LIV Golf member celebrated two years of sobriety and went into detail about his past drug use.
The post features a gallery of photos starting with a picture of pills on a table. Kim, 39, wrote that he had to take these pills twice a day in rehab to "safely withdraw."
"Two years sober. Biggest accomplishment of my life," Kim wrote. "I was barely physically able to walk into rehab needing assistance from my sober coach as my body was shutting down."
The rest of the gallery, Kim says, include snapshots from times he was visited in rehab by family, photos from the month after rehab and a few pictures with his family from the last year.
"Not long before this moment I contemplated ending my life every day for almost two decades even while playing [on the PGA Tour]," he wrote. "When to the public I seemed happy while struggling with addiction and mental illness. This post isn't to tell everyone to get sober but for people who are letting addiction ruin their lives as I did that you can turn your life around."
Next came another shocking bit of information—Kim stating that he numbed his pain with drugs and alcohol every day, including, he appeared to be saying, during majors.
"I got so good at hiding it that I lost who I was," he said. "It’s f---in' hard playing majors making porta potty stops every few holes."
Between 2007 and 2011, while a member of the PGA Tour, Kim played in 15 majors, collecting five top-20 finishes during that stretch. Arguably his No. 1 career highlight came at the 2010 Masters, where he shot a final-round 65 to finish in solo third. A year earlier, Kim set the record for most birdies in a round at the Masters with 11 in Friday's second round. That week, he tied for 20th.
Following the solo third at Augusta in 2010, Kim tied for seventh at the Quail Hollow Championship in his next start, then missed three months with a thumb injury. While he did manage to tie for fifth at the Open Championship the following year, that thumb injury marked the beginning of the end for Kim. He withdrew from his final three PGA Tour events in 2012 and then proceeded to disappear from competitive golf.
Kim reemerged a year ago, making his LIV debut in Miami, which marked his first start on American soil in 12 years. He remained coy about his struggles with mental health and addiction, telling David Feherty in a sitdown interview that he was saving most of the details for a documentary he's working on. His Instagram post on Thursday morning is by far the most detail he's ever gotten into regarding his demons.
"In rehab I found faith, self love and respect and purpose," he said. "I am not proud of who I was but I am today. One of the many things I realized is how grateful we all need to be for what we have now and to spend time with real friends because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
"I promised myself when I was in the ER for six days that I would do everything I could to make a difference to show my daughter that it’s never too late to keep trying. I am currently working on a few things that I know will change peoples lives including a website where I will be sharing both good and bad experiences that hopefully others struggling can learn from."
Kim, who will turn 40 this June, has played in both LIV events in 2025, tying for 49th in Riyadh and tying for 51st in Adelaide. He will be back in action in Hong Kong next month.