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Alexander F. Yuan

Anthony Kim can make $10 million by quitting golf forever - report

Kim hasn’t played since 2012 but could cash in a massive insurance payout if he retires.

ANTHONY KIM, THE one-time sensation who has become golf’s greatest mystery since vanishing from the PGA Tour in 2012, is mulling an impossible decision.

According to a new article by Sports Illustrated’s Alan Shipnuck, Kim has an insurance policy that covers him in the event of a career ending injury. The policy will pay him $10 million tax-free if he never plays again, one source told Shipnuck.

Kim’s friend told SI the policy was worth more than $10 million, saying, “He’s trying to weigh the risk of coming back. The way he’s phrased it to me is, ‘If I take one swing on Tour, the policy is voided.’”

Kim hasn’t played since he tore his Achilles in the summer of 2012. Before that he dealt with an avalanche of injuries to his forearm, wrist, and thumb that derailed his career after a breakout season in 2008 — where he won two tournaments and earned $4.6 million in prize money.

He withdrew from three-straight tournaments in April and May 2012, and hasn’t been heard from since.

Shipnuck calls him a “recluse.” He lives in Dallas, but no reporters have spoken to him. It’s unclear if he has played much golf. Fellow golfers have lost contact with him. He grew his hair so long that a golf course worker that Shipnuck talked to said he looks like “a hobo.”

Take the $10 million and give up your life’s work? Or give up the $10 million and try to be the best golfer in the world?

Kim is incredibly talented. In 2008, Mark O’Meara said Kim had a better swing at age 21 than Tiger Woods did. Shipnuck reports that Phil Mickelson ran into him in 2013 and thought his swing looked PGA Tour-ready.

At age 29, there is plenty of time for him to carve out a career on Tour that will earn him much more than $10 million.

– Tony Manfred, Business Insider

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