Grounded Kizzire finds his way back
Masters Countdown: under 200 days; Stray Shots: Dead Presidents and lively BMW
Welcome back to Augusta, Patton Kizzire (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
The Masters countdown has officially passed the 200 days mark, so let’s take a look at the latest player and 69th overall to book his spot in the 2025 field.
Patton Kizzire will return to Augusta National for the first time since tying for 18th in the 2019 Masters. Maybe he’ll hug the giant live oak that has stood sentinel between the clubhouse and the first tee since Bobby Jones first built the course. It would not be advisable for him to walk around in bare feet.
Kizzire, it seems, found his missing mojo with the help of a St. Simons Island, Ga., mental coach who has helped him get in tune with nature and center himself in the moment by embracing things like literal trees and the feel of grass under his bare feet. It sounds a little odd, but whatever works. Kizzire’s nearly seven-year drought-snapping victory by a comfortable five shots two Sundays ago at the PGA Tour’s fall opener in Napa, Calif. — the newly named Procore Championship — is not a result to argue with the player’s methods.
He should leave the bare feet portion of his grounding ritual at home when he gets to the Masters next April. That sort of thing is frowned upon at Augusta National. Sam Snead reportedly played nine holes of a practice round barefoot in 1942 (before his death Snead said he really only walked up to the ninth green barefoot after being egged on by PGA Tour tournament manager Fred Corcoran). “Honestly, I’m telling you the truth, I feel better when I stand up to the ball in my bare feet,” said the man from Hot Springs, Va. The three-time green jacket winner speculated that the barefoot incident is the reason he didn’t get any bridges at Augusta named after him like his peers Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan did.
Kizzire said on Friday at Silverado Resort after posting a 65 to gain a share of the lead that he’s only “hugged one tree in my life and that was this morning.” It was a big old oak he couldn’t get his arms even halfway around. But the mental outlook he’s gained from working with a woman at home (he chose not to give her name) certainly showed in the Zen-like way he handled hanging onto a big lead in the final round after not winning on tour since his two-win season in 2017-18.
“I’ve had a little bit of time off. I missed the (FedEx Cup) playoffs, so I wanted to make a little bit of an adjustment with my golf game, mental game and physical game,” he said. “It’s been really cool to just get organized and try to be more playful out there and be unflappable, that’s kind of my word.
“Just finding joy and positivity and really not letting yourself go the other way.”
What a healthy outlook. That could come in handy for a 38-year-old, 6-foot-5 native Alabaman with loads of skill and three PGA tour wins under his belt. His buddy, Don Ward, uses the expression “that was yesterday” about anything that’s already happened. The focus needs to always be forward.
Kizzire believes that’s what was missing in the intervening years and 176 starts since he won the 2018 Sony Open in a playoff a couple months after breaking his maiden at Mayakoba.
“I think what was wrong, you couldn’t see it in the stats,” he said. “I think the consistency comes from a solid mental foundation and allowing yourself to compete. So I’ve been working on that and that’s been a huge boost for me.”
In order to put what he learned into effect heading to the first tee on Sunday with a four-shot lead, he wrote six words in his yardage book to remind himself to stay in the present every time he looked at it.
“I am here, I am now.”
“I knew that it would be difficult not to get ahead of myself,” he said. “I kept going back to that and that helped me be disciplined and stay present. That was something that just kept going back to and that’s what really helped me come out on top.”
Naturally, Kizzire’s new outlook keeps him from looking 200 days ahead to next April when he will get to tee it up for the third time in his adopted home state of Georgia for the Masters. He simply plans to build toward the season’s first major one start at a time – remaining here and now. The next step is next week at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Miss.
“This fall is really important for me and for a lot of guys,” said Kizzire, whose breakthrough win came in a fall event in Mexico. “They’re some of my favorite tournaments of the year. I found myself asking for sponsor’s invites and now I don’t think I have to do that. I may be wrong, I don’t know. But yeah, I found myself on the outside looking in to some of these tournaments coming up this fall that I love and to win this week I think takes care of that and I’m excited to compete again.”
The fall schedule might not have the cachet or the purses of the regular season, but Kizzire knows better than anyone how key it is to building a player’s confidence and launching him to success on the PGA Tour that gets more and more competitive every year with hungry new players ready to unseat a 38-year-old grinder.
“There’s so many guys, young guys, that are coming up trying to take your job,” he said. “As my buddy Brian Harman says, ‘See that guy over there? He’s trying to take my job.’ I laugh every time he says that, but they are. There’s so many good players coming up and everybody’s training better and getting better. It’s so competitive. The guys are working hard. You’ve got to be on top of your game to win. That’s what makes it so sweet.”