Anthony Kim Relearns Modern Gear With Ben Giunta at Doral

Anthony Kim returned to golf in 2024 and immediately ran into a problem that did not exist when he left in 2012: the equipment world had moved on. Ben Giunta helped drag him into it after Kim came back to LIV Golf, turning a long absence into a crash course on clubs, launch monitors and numbers.

Giunta Meets Kim at Doral

Giunta and Kim reconnected at Doral, where the reset began on the range. Giunta recalled, "I remember walking down, we were at Doral, and I was walking across the range and about halfway down the range, he sees me and throws his arms out".

The reunion carried a twist. Giunta said, "The funniest part actually is I still wear a bunch of Nike garb… He thought I still worked for Nike." Giunta had once been a Nike Tour rep when Kim was a young player, but by the time they met again he owned the Tour Van, LIV Golf’s lone Tour Truck.

Launch Monitor Shock

The first real gap showed up when Giunta brought out a launch monitor. Kim had never used a Trackman before, and Giunta said, "And he’s like, what the hell is this? Yeah, like he had no idea. He didn’t know anything about numbers".

That reaction fit the scale of the change. In 2012, TaylorMade was still selling a white driver, Callaway had just released its first adjustable driver, Fujikura was still six years away from releasing Ventus, and Nike was still making golf clubs. Kim had spent his earlier career judging equipment by feel and ball flight, not by the data now built into fitting sessions.

Kim’s Bag Kept Changing

The adjustment did not end with one session. Kim’s speed came back as he returned to regular competitive golf, and it increased, which forced changes to his bag more than once as the equipment had to keep up with his swing.

That process became part of the return itself. Kim left the game in 2012, came back in 2024, and won LIV Golf Adelaide in February. By 2025, the gap was no longer just about time away from tournament golf; it was about learning how to test clubs in a game built around launch data and constant fitting updates.

For a player coming back after 12 years, Giunta’s role was less about nostalgia than translation. Kim had to relearn how modern gear is measured before he could trust what was in the bag, and the bag kept changing until his speed and his setup matched again.