Home experience in SC plays big role in Kisner’s best-ever start in an Open
If you grew up in Aiken, just 20 or so miles east of Augusta National, chances are pretty good that your youthful golf dreams involved making a putt to win the Masters. Kevin Kisner, a product and still a resident of Aiken, fits that stereotype to a tee.
But the former Georgia Bulldog’s childhood imagination occasionally ran to another of golf’s major championships: The Open Championship. Much of that, he said Thursday after a 5-under par 66 at Carnoustie Golf Club, has to do with where he played much of his junior golf.
Palmetto Golf Club might not be as old as most of the Open’s rotation courses, but at just over 125 years (1892), it’s the oldest in South Carolina. It also plays something like the great links courses, even if the closest body of water is the Savannah River, not the Atlantic Ocean.
“Palmetto is a great golf course for British Opens,” Kisner said. “It’s firm, fast and undulating around the greens. That’s why I feel so comfortable here around the greens, because I see the same type of shots at home often.”
Turns out, those days were good preparation for Thursday’s opening round. His tournament-leading total, a shot ahead of American Tony Fineau and the South African duo of Erik Van Rooyen and Zander Lombard among the day’s results, at first glance looks like a day full of birdies (plus an eagle), but in fact, Kisner’s result was more about his ability to save par from a string of tough and occasionally sandy spots.
After his only bogey of the day at the fifth hole, where he hit into a bunker and two-putted from 40 feet, Kisner’s putting and short game – neither strengths earlier this year – turned electrifying. He drained a 40-footer at the par-5 sixth to get to 1-under par, and sank another lengthy putt of 35 feet for birdie at the eighth.
Then he turned into a round-saving magician. At the par-4 ninth, he was short of the green in two, but got up and down for par. At the 10th, his second shot was long, over the green and behind a hump; no problem, as he again one-putted for par.
That kick-started his back nine, as Kisner made birdie putts of 15, three and 15 feet on holes 13-15. But what kept the round alive were par-saving putts from 10, 25 and 10 feet over Carnoustie’s brutish final three holes – two of those coming after he hit into Carnoustie’s trademark pot bunkers.
Kisner credited his putting to a Monday practice session where he “worked really hard on my speed (on the greens), which is always the hardest thing for us (Americans) to get accustomed to here.” A practice session with noted short-game instructor Pete Cowen focused on extricating himself from the bunkers, often a nightmare scenario on Open links courses.
“Yeah, impromptu bunker game (with Cowen) and it worked today,” Kisner said, and added with a chuckle, “I’d better go back out there and try him again.”
It was Kisner’s best-ever start in an Open – a tie for 54th at Royal Birkdale last year was his best finish in three previous visits to the United Kingdom – and he said, it positioned him to perhaps make a serious run at his first major title.
“Absolutely,” he said. “You never know what the weather is going to hold, the golf course is going to hold. You’re always trying to get in and get it in as low as you can, because you never know what the next day is going to have.”
The same could be said for Kisner’s previous best shot at winning a major. At last year’s PGA Championship, where he finished tied for seventh behind winner Justin Thomas, Kisner flirted with the lead until the end on Sunday.
“I only hit one bad shot coming down the stretch,” Kisner said. “I kind of got out of the lead and fought back to get back to the lead and hit a poor shot at 16. (At) 18, I played to win. I was trying to hit a high-hook 5-iron the back left of the pin to win (and) I missed it 10 feet into the water.
“I’ll never be upset with myself for that. I love myself under the gun and down the stretch. So I’m looking forward to that opportunity” this week.
He certainly has plenty of majors-winning role models at hand. Kisner is part of a two-house gathering this week with Thomas, Ricky Fowler, Jimmy Walker, Jason Dufner, 2015 Open winner Zach Johnson and defending Open champion Jordan Spieth, Americans with a combined eight major titles between them. “I have zero,” Kisner said, but “it’s not intimidating at all. They’re all great people.”
Competitive, too, as evenings of impromptu backyard soccer attest. Spieth is a good player, Kisner said, but “with all these guys ... you’re pretty much the best at everything. It’s pretty cool to watch how athletic a lot of those guys are – except Duff,” who plays goalkeeper for the house.
Of his own futbol skills, Kisner said with a laugh, “I just try to smash Duff in the face.”
Three more rounds like Thursday’s and Kisner might add one to the house’s majors total. It’s not the Masters, of course, but Kisner has his childhood history with The Open, too.
“The coolest thing about The Open Championship growing up was being able to wake up early and have it on (TV),” he said. “Every other tournament, you had to wait until 4 or 5 in the afternoon and see what’s happening. Over here, I could wake up and watch it every morning.”
He smiled at that. “My fondest memories are with my dad, watching it and getting to skip church on Sunday, and getting to watch The Open.”
Kisner would like nothing better than to put on a show of his own for the folks back in Aiken this Sunday.
This story was originally published July 19, 2018 at 4:09 PM.