Golf

Kevin Kisner Is the People’s World Golf Champion

The PGA Tour has a character hassle—more especially, scarcity-of-persona trouble. So lots of the sport’s pinnacle players provide vanilla solutions to questions, show little emotion whilst competing, and handiest have interaction with lovers while sponsors tell them to. Kevin Kisner is not one of those guys. The 35-12 months-old—who simply picked up the most important win of his profession at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play—is five feet, 10 inches of candor, humor, and humility. Fans, journalists, and different gamers admire Kisner because he keeps it real, and that’s why his victory on Sunday was so famous inside the golfing world.

Kiz became asked approximately the $1.74 million he took home for the win. True to shape, he responded: “I’m the most inexpensive guy in the international. I hoard that money like crazy because I don’t want it to run out. I do not know how lengthy I’m going to make 10-footers,” he said. Here is a rundown of some motives why so many adore Kevin Kisner.

SLIPPERY

At final year’s Zurich Classic, the two-guy team event in New Orleans, the Tour allowed each group to play a first-tee walk-up track. This led to some high-quality picks—Korean duo K.J. Choi and Charlie Wi went with “Gangnam Style,” Charley Hoffman (who’s from San Diego), and Nick Watney (Sacramento) played “California Love.” Harold Varner and Robert Garrigus picked “Ebony and Ivory” for apparent motives. But the high-quality second of the week came through Kisner and his associate, Scott Brown. They allow lovers to vote for their stroll-up track, and the winner turned into “Slippery” via Atlanta rap trio Migos. I may want to try and describe why this was so funny. However, you’d be better served by using actually looking at this video.

First, Kisner determined to preserve the track playing even as he hit the tee shot. The Zurich Classic doesn’t offer global ranking points, nor does the winner get a Master’s invite; however, it’s miles a PGA Tour occasion. Winning it comes with FedEx Cup factors, greater than $1 million, and a two-year exemption. It’s no longer even close to meaningless so that Kisner became right down to preserve the music playing shows he doesn’t take himself, or this game, too critically. That’s exceptional to look at, but what makes this, in reality, hilarious is the lyrics gambling whilst he makes contact. “She is with me, your wife to be.” Incredible. Look at Brown attempting no longer to snicker. And of direction, Kiz piped it proper down the middle. Boss.

2019 MAJOR OUTLOOK

Kisner has three PGA Tour wins and has greater than $19 million in career prize money. He’s been ranked as high as No. 14 inside the world; he’s represented the U.S. At the Presidents Cup, and he’s finished 2d in a chief championship before. He is, via everyone’s requirements, one of the quality golfers within the international, so that you’d anticipate him to feel quite precise about his possibilities in the majors.

You could be incorrect. In aN interview with Barstool’s Fore Play podcast, Kisner was asked approximately his odds at every 4 host venue this 12 months. On Augusta: “They changed No. Five to 495, so that adds every other bogey for me.” On Bethpage Black: “PGA, Bethpage, got no danger there.” On Pebble Beach: “I can play respectable if the USGA wasn’t going for walks it.” On Royal Portrush: “I’ve were given no concept about Ireland.” Contrast this with JT’s reaction at the equal podcast, wherein he stated he likes his chances at all 4 venues, and also you get a higher experience of simply how one-of-a-kind Kisner’s degree of honesty is.

THE WINGED FOOT STORY

hokey

This text explains it all:

A PGA Tour seasoned who may have a surely accurate time gambling with amateurs? You don’t say!

Kiz seemed to affirm this story together with his post-WGC tweet:

WHEN HE GOT SUSPENDED FROM HIS OWN CLUB

A Vice video from 2016 confirmed Kisner and his buddies racing golf carts at Kisner’s domestic path, Palmetto Golf Club. He was reputedly suspended rapidly thereafter because, you realize, racing golfing carts typically isn’t allowed at private golf equipment.

HE DOESN’T HIT THE BALL UNGODLY DISTANCES

On the 2018-19 season, Kisner ranks 156th in riding distance at 286.8 yards. While he is nevertheless gambling a specific sport than certainly all amateurs, it is no longer that lots of a different recreation—he can’t carry bunkers farther than 270 yards out. He doesn’t hit his 6 iron 210 yards. He unearths a ton of fairways, has a certainly cast-iron sport, and excels at the greens. Nothing too fancy. It’s a relatable sport, so to talk.

NOT HOLDING BACK ON PATRICK REED

The PGA Tour is a fraternity of sorts, with two hundred or so men traveling worldwide to play in a maximum of equal tournaments. So you can understand why players are generally averse to disagreement, considering that they recognize they’ll see—and in all likelihood play alongside—whomever they may communicate negatively of. But, again, that is where Kisner departs from the norm.

Kisner performed college golf at Georgia, the equal faculty Patrick Reed began at before he changed into kicked off the team and transferred to Augusta State. In a Golf Digest piece on Reed’s controversial past, Kisner stated the following: “They all hate him—any guys that have been at the team with him [at Georgia] hate him, and that’s the identical manner at Augusta. I don’t recognize that they’d piss on him if he was on fire to inform you the fact.” Say what you need approximately that comment (and that imagery), but Kisner actually isn’t afraid to say what’s on his mind. People observe that and admire that. In an era of 210-pound behemoths who fly it 315 and by no means say something exciting, Kisner plays and contains himself just like the guy at your membership who’s simply higher than absolutely everyone else. He is the people’s champion, and now he is a World Golf Champion.

Randy Montgomery

Hardcore pop culture trailblazer. Music junkie. Troublemaker. Twitter fan. Travel nerd. Tv guru. Snowboarder, dreamer, DJ, Swiss design-head and identity designer. Performing at the sweet spot between minimalism and intellectual purity to create not just a logo, but a feeling. Let's make every day A RAZZLE-DAZZLE MUSICAL.

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