For Kira Dixon, the legendary squint of Clint Eastwood made her day.
The former Kira Kazantsev, and 2015 Miss America – sorry, fellas, she’s off the market now – played five holes on Wednesday in a charity shootout with Clint Eastwood, the 89-year-old actor and director, as part of Team Eastwood.
“I think it was the most legendary thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “He was so sweet. He said, ‘C’mon, gorgeous, let’s see it.’ It was amazing. He looked at one shot and said, ‘That was very respectable.’ I said, ‘Thank you, Clint.’ ”
Dixon can bring it, according to her pro-am partner this week, Zac Blair.
“Like all partners in these kind of things, she was a little nervous early, but she can play. She can smoke it,” Blair said of Dixon, a 15 handicap.
Dixon, 28, was introduced to the game at age 3 by her father. The Bay Area resident grew up working at a golf course and even made the varsity golf team as a freshman in high school. But she moved on to “cooler” pursuits such as cheerleading and didn’t get back into golf until after her crowning achievements first as Miss New York and then Miss America.
Her celebrity status drew several invitations to charity golf events, and she caught the golf bug all over again.
“I’m weirdly obsessed with golf,” she told NCGA Golf Magazine in a 2019 profile.
She’s become a regular on the pro-am circuit, including at the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship. She even impressed Tiger Woods enough with her short game to earn an invite to the inaugural Celebrity Cup at Riviera Country Club last year ahead of the Genesis Open and has co-hosted the live auction at his annual fundraiser, Tiger Jam.
Dixon also is pursuing a career in the golf space as a TV personality, and has served as an on-camera digital reporter for the USGA at the past two U.S. Opens, at Shinnecock Hills and Pebble Beach, and regularly appearing on the organization’s social-media platforms. That led to a gig with Golf Channel, for whom Dixon hosts Golf Advisor Living, a program on golf lifestyles, and she recently did live hits from the floor at the PGA Merchandise Show for “Morning Drive.”
Dixon made the cut in her inaugural appearance in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last year, but couldn’t duplicate her success today. She and Blair finished 10 under for three rounds after a 1-over 73 at Pebble Beach on Saturday. But as one of the few female participants in the competition, she took pride in having an eight-year-old girl named Caroline follow her around on Friday, claiming to be her biggest fan. And there was that 6-hybrid that she boasted she hit “perfectly” to set up a net birdie.
“We don’t need to talk about my other shots,” she said with a smile.
