After missing out on the Tour Championship in August, Chris Kirk rested during the off-season by working on his golf game – as a left-hander rather than as a righty, shooting a low score of 82.
“It’s really hard left-handed,” he said. “Really hard.”
Kirk, who won the Ben Hogan Award as the college player of the year, has been making the game look easy for years. His graceful, fluid swing as a right-hander long has produced his trademark natural draw and it delivered in crunch time on Sunday in the final round of the PGA Tour’s season-opening tournament, The Sentry, in Kapalua, Hawaii.
The 38-year-old veteran pro was tied for the lead at the 17th hole at Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course and facing 209 yards to the green at the toughest hole on the back nine. With the wind, which had been non-existent all week, picking up he switched from a 7-iron to a 5-iron and struck a beauty that bounced on the fringe and rolled to inside 3 feet to set up the winning birdie.
“That one on 17, I’ll remember for a long time,” he said. “One of the best shots of my career, for sure.”
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Nursing a one-stroke lead after 54 holes, Kirk capped off a bogey-free 9-under 64 on Sunday to win his sixth PGA Tour title with a 72-hole total of 29-under 263 and one-stroke better than Sahith Theegala.
“Just kind of kept reminding myself of no matter how I felt, no matter how nervous I was, there was nothing really stopping me from hitting great shots, hitting great putts, and I was able to kind of remind myself of that before every shot,” Kirk said.
Kirk returned to Kapalua this week for the first time since 2016, booking his trip last February at the Honda Classic, where he won for the first time in nearly eight years. In November, Kirk, who took a leave of absence from the Tour in May 2019 to address issues with alcohol abuse and depression, received the PGA Tour Courage Award.
During the final round in paradise, Kirk said he was nervous but he never showed it. The lack of wind left the Plantation Course vulnerable, and the pros attacked. The final-round scoring average of 66.7 was the lowest single-round average on Tour on record (dating to 1983), on the par-73 layout. Justin Rose equaled the course record with a 12-under 61. Sungjae Im closed in 10-under 63 and set a record with 34 birdies, the most in a 72-hole tournament since 1983. Kirk birdied four holes in a five-hole stretch on the front nine to maintain a narrow lead, but Theegala birdied four in a row on both nines to keep the pressure on Kirk. Theegala caught Kirk with a birdie at 15 to get to 27 under and one group later Spieth made birdie at 15 to make it a three-way tie at the top. Theegala made his fourth birdie in a row and fifth in his last six holes at 16 to take sole possession of the lead at the time, but he lipped out for birdie on 18 that could have forced a playoff.
“I knew I just needed to keep making birdies and there was a bunch of chances, especially with the wind laying down,” Theegala said. “Really wish I could have had that second shot on 18 back. It’s not how it works.”
Spieth was done in by a bad break at 16, where his tee shot plugged in a bunker and he made bogey. He closed in 65 and finished third.
Kirk stayed cool and calm to win the shootout, playing with “more self-belief than I’ve had in years,” he said. Along the way, he’s rediscovered his love of the game.
“Had it for a long time and then lost it,” he said. “I lost the joy of most things in life for awhile there. But, yeah, it’s certainly back. I think I just love how hard this is. Like, it’s so hard to be great at this, and I love the process that it takes. I love the work that it takes to try to be the best version of myself. I definitely have fallen back in love with that process, and sometimes you get rewarded for it, like today, and sometimes you don’t.”
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