Kevin Kisner could not help but grin on Wednesday as he smashed one drive after another into a faint diagonal mist that quickly graduated into a steady downpour.
“If it was raining this hard in the States, we’d probably have to quit,” he said on the beachside driving range adjacent to the Old Course at St Andrews, where he will make his Open debut on Thursday morning. “The golf courses aren’t prepared for it. I don’t think there’s any halting of play over here no matter what, so all that will be new. But it’s still who can get the ball in the hole the fastest.”
The 31-year-old from Aiken, South Carolina, had played the Old Course for the first time during a practice round on Tuesday, his easy southern twang dancing with the local caddie’s Scottish brogue as they hashed out the shrewd calculus of the world’s most fabled links, buoyed by a confidence that’s scaled new heights after nearly a decade as a professional golfer.
Over the past year Kisner has soared from No295 to No34 in the world. He enters the Open amid a career-best season in which he has made the cut in 17 of 23 events played – including a run of nine straight since April – with six finishes in the top 10. He ranks eighth on the current money list with $3,103,576 (£1,983,895), nearly twice what he’d made in four previous years on the tour.
While his maiden PGA Tour victory has eluded him in tortuous fashion – he’s become the first player to lose three play-offs in a season since Horton Smith in 1937 – Kisner enters the Open as a dangerous floater after tying for 12th at last month’s US Open at the links-style Chambers Bay.
Success did not come overnight for Kisner, a self-described good ol’ boy who drives a Ford F-150, listens to Colt Ford and lists catching a blue marlin and driving a stock car as the top items on his bucket list. For years he toiled in the obscurity of pro golf’s minor leagues, winning events on the NGA Hooters Tour (one) and Tarheel Tour (two) from 2006 through to 2009. He earned his PGA Tour card in 2011, but until last year jockeyed back and forth between golf’s top circuit and the developmental Nationwide Tour.
But since teaming up with the swing coach John Tillery a year and a half ago, Kisner’s game has taken off.
“I just gained a lot of confidence in my ball-striking,” said Kisner, a small wad of tobacco tucked inside his pursed bottom lip. “I’ve worked really hard with John and am starting to see the results from all that hard work. Once you start getting confidence that you can do it, and you start seeing the shots that you’re seeing on the range in competition and then on Sunday down the stretch, then that confidence keeps continuing to build.”
While he is a relative newcomer to the sport’s topmost echelon, Kisner approaches major championships with the appreciation of a veteran – the measured perspective not often seen in younger players ready-made for stardom.
“These are just one step above everything else that we have all year,” he said. “Obviously you see why the greatest players in the game have always worked their games to play majors. This is the biggest stage that we get. If I get up there I’ll build off my finish at the US Open, where I had somewhat of a chance coming down the stretch. Just use that as a kind of guiding light for how to finish this one off.”
Kisner arrived on Monday on a charter flight with a group that included Jordan Spieth after shooting a two-under 69 in Sunday’s final round of the John Deere Classic. He has rented a house in nearby Strathkinness, an eight-minute drive from the Old Course, where he is staying with Tillery and his caddie Duane Bock.
His wife, Brittany, is here, though their one-year-old daughter Kathleen Grace stayed at home, forcing the couple to rely on videos and pictures from family: “We haven’t even FaceTimed with her, to not upset her.”
Away from the course Kisner, who led the University of Georgia to an NCAA championship in 2005 and graduated with a degree in business management, keeps it simple and straightforward as his game.
“I grew up with great parents, I believe in family, respect others and have great manners,” Kisner said. “I play to win. I’ve just always been a competitor. Being able to perform in the moment is what drives me.”
