It seemed that Gneiser would be the beneficiary in 2008. Eager for a fresh start, Kim tied for third at the Bob Hope in Palm Springs, where he went to high school. Kim's first win appeared imminent, and in retrospect it was-but with a new supporting cast.
Kim and Gneiser imploded at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles in mid-February. After his lackluster second half of 2007, Kim was on the bubble to get into the WGC-Accenture Match Play the week after L.A. After much speculation, it appeared he was in line to be the 64th seed, meaning a first-round match with Tiger Woods.
The prospect of playing Woods is enough to put anyone on edge, especially Kim, who was already being compared to Tiger, but the match never happened. Just before the Friday deadline, Ernie Els decided to enter the Accenture, bumping Kim out of the field.
Gneiser broke the news to Kim on the Riviera range, and according to multiple caddie sources, a bitter argument began between player and caddie over whether Kim needed to hear the news then and there. That he shot 73-77 to miss the cut didn't help. He and Gneiser were finished; word even got out that they'd fired each other.
"I didn't feel like we were thinking alike on the course," Kim said last week. (Gneiser could not be reached for comment.)
Enter Eric Larson, whose career as a caddie was interrupted in 1995 by a 10-year prison sentence for his part in a small-time cocaine ring.
"We were friends-we started hanging out a little bit last year," Kim said at Quail Hollow. "And we got to be pretty close. I wanted someone I could hang out with off the golf course, as well. It just so happened that he had a week open and I had a week open, and I said, 'Let's do it,' and he was on. So I gave him a four-week trial, and this is the third week, so I'd say he's got a pretty good shot at getting the bag."
Larson won with Mark Calcavecchia before his incarceration and has already won twice since then, once with Calcavecchia at last year's PODS Championship, and now with Kim. How long he'll last is an open question, but his comeback highlights the intestinal fortitude required in his line of work, as does the entire short story of A.K. Inc.
Levin now caddies for Kenneth Ferrie, the Brit who contended at the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot but has not played well since and didn't qualify for this week's Players. Gneiser has been working for Parker McLachlin, who didn't make the field this week, either. Kim is the poster boy for this year's leitmotif: The arrival of the 20-somethings.
"I knew it was going to happen," Levin says of Kim's arrival, but they haven't spoken. "We didn't leave on the best of terms."
Maybe all that talk about their SoCal roots and Nike swooshes is on point, and Kim really is the second coming of Woods. Tiger's formative years on Tour were just as tumultuous, if not more so, featuring the firings of his starter caddie Mike (Fluff) Cowan after more than two years; IMG agent Hughes Norton; and super-coach Butch Harmon.
Kim may mellow as Woods has, but meanwhile the rise of a golf prodigy is like a well-worn line from Fight Club: "You wanna make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs."
