Tag: Jim Knous

Last call for Hard K: Jim Knous makes cut in final start before taking job with Ping

It’s been five years since a Monday qualifier won a PGA Tour event.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — If this is Jim Knous’s final PGA Tour event, he can at least say he made it to one more weekend.

“I want to see what that Saturday Colosseum vibe is like on No. 16. I want to hear them roar,” he said. “I need to get in there and hit a good shot so I can hear them roar.”

Knous who was inside the cutline at 3 under overall with four holes remaining when play was halted Friday night, went birdie-par-bogey-birdie to post a 66 on Saturday morning. That got him to 4 under, well inside the cutline.

Knous, 34, earned his way into the tournament in the Monday qualifier at Pinnacle Peak Country Club, shooting 7-under 65 and advancing through a 4-for-3 playoff.

But it’s last call because Knous decided it’s time to hang up his golf spikes and is set to begin a new position working at Ping as a fitting and education engineer. Knous, who lost a playoff for the 2012 NCAA Division II title, is the most successful player to come out of Colorado School of Mines, which is also where Ping’s vice president of fitting and performance Marty Jertson went to school and he has long taken an interest in Knous, who has played Ping equipment throughout his career.

“Working with the fitters, design engineers, R&D. A broad scope position so I can branch out later once I maybe find out what I’m good at or what I like to do there,” said Knous of his new which begins Feb. 26. “I got a cubicle. Let’s go.”

Knous made his PGA Tour debut at the 2017 WM Phoenix Open. It took seven years after turning pro before Knous earned his Tour card for the 2019 season. In all, he has made 44 Tour starts as well as nearly 100 more on the Korn Ferry Tour in his 11 years as a pro. But the grind of being on the fringes of the pro game also have taken their toll. He failed to get through Q-School this year and decided it was time to put his civil engineering degree to use.

But first, Knous has his college coach, Tyler Kimble, on the bag at TPC Scottsdale. Wife, Heidi, and the couple’s three kids watched his opening round and father, Jim, and mother, Ellen, were among his supporters walking with him on Friday afternoon. He holed out a bunker shot for birdie at 18, his ninth hole of his second round, and lifted his arms to the sky in delight.

“Clipped it just perfectly and went in and I just said, ‘Yeah, baby, let’s go.’ I was super psyched,” he said.

Then he birdied his next three holes. Last call will have to wait two more rounds because on Saturday morning, in the pouring rain, he chipped in for birdie at No. 6, flagged it at No. 7 but left the birdie putt an inch short in the heart of the hole and took three putts at No. 8. But he bounced back to drain a 23-foot birdie putt at the last and shot 66. He posted a 36-hole total of 4-under 138 and is T-34 at the midway point of the tournament.

“Thanks for the ride,” his father, an avid golfer who got his son started in the game at about 2, said in an interview with PGA Tour.com.

But Knous knows it is time to do something else after being on the road for 197 nights in 2022.

“That just wears on you as a person, as a dad. So we made the decision to try to look for other opportunities,” he said on Saturday after making the cut.

“I’m very proud of my career, but it’s time to be a dad,” Knous told Monday Q. “I’m just going to enjoy everything about this week, no matter what.”

Monday qualifier for WM Phoenix Open went to a playoff before these three got in the field

The day started with 104 golfers at Pinnacle Peak Country Club.

The day started with 104 golfers at Pinnacle Peak Country Club, all vying for one of three spots in the 2024 WM Phoenix Open.

The tee sheet was full of names golf fans would recognize: Ryan Palmer, Wesley Bryan, DJ Trahan, James Hahn, Martin Trainer. There even a few golfers from PGA Tour Champions – Esteban Toledo, Billy Mayfair – who wanted a crack at it.

By the afternoon there were 13 withdrawals on one end of the leaderboard and some 64s at the top. Only the top three advance but late in the day, Jim Knous posted the fourth 7-under 64, forcing a 4-for-3 playoff. He was joined in the sudden death by Nicolo Galletti, Jacob Bridgeman and two-time PGA Tour winner Patton Kizzire.

The Southwest Section PGA even fired up a live stream for the playoff.

On the second playoff hole, in the waning daylight, Galletti made birdie while Kizzire and Knous made par. For Galletti, who hails from Phoenix and was Jon Rahm’s roommate at Arizona State, it’ll be his first PGA Tour start.

Bridgeman was facing a bogey putt but it didn’t matter, as he was the odd man out.

Sami Valimaki played in the qualifier but found out after his round he was in the WM Phoenix Open field as an alternate after Patrick Rodgers withdrew.

The Phoenix Open starts Thursday with 132 players.

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Jim Knous keeps his job on the PGA Tour thanks to the ‘Greatest top 60 of all time’

There is Sunday pressure on the PGA Tour trying to win a tournament, which is immense, and then there’s the pressure of playing for your livelihood.

There is Sunday pressure on the PGA Tour trying to win a tournament, which is immense, and then there’s the pressure of playing for your livelihood.

Jim Knous, making his final start on his medical exemption, needed to earn at least 3.516 FedEx Cup points at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship to secure conditional Tour status as well as full Korn Ferry Tour status for the remainder of the 2021-22 season. That amounted to finishing T-61 or better and when he started with four bogeys in his first eight holes, it looked as if he may need to start looking in the help wanted ads on Monday. But Knous righted the ship with four birdies against a single bogey coming home to shoot 1-over 72, finish T-57, and keep his job for the rest of the season.

“Greatest top-60 (finish) of all time,” he cracked.

Knous injured his right wrist at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open and it required surgery that August, sidelining him for the rest of the year and all of 2020. He held the 54-hole lead at the Fortinet Championship in September, but a final-round 74 dropped him to T-11 and left him with one event to get the job done – or else be jobless.

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“It’s just been weighing on me,” he said. “The emotions were going crazy today. I was running through all the scenarios in my head, which is exactly what you don’t want to do, but it’s hard to block those out. Once that first tee ball was in the air, it was game time, everything kind of pushed to the back in my mind, so I was just able to focus on golf.”

That Knous even had a chance on Sunday was remarkable. Playing in the worst of the weather on Thursday, he opened with seven bogeys on his first eight holes and shot 76. He needed to go low to make the cut on Friday and did just that – making eagle at 17 en route to shooting 66 and making the cut on the number. But 71 players survived the 36-hole cut so he still had his work cut out for himself over the weekend. On Saturday, he posted 2-under 69 to give himself some wiggle room, but not much.

And then the weather turned nasty on Sunday and Knous got off to a brutal start. Having played the back nine first, Knous rallied with birdies at Nos. 2, 4 and 7 before a bogey at 8 made his chances a bit dicey again with one hole to go.

“I knew making birdie would be great and would vault me up the leaderboard a little bit. I saw T-61 on the tee when I teed off, so I said, ‘I don’t know about that.’ I said, ‘Let’s make a par and I’m going to try to make this birdie putt just like any other putt, I’m going to try to make it.’ Luckily, rolled it in,” he said. “I was so ecstatic to see it go in. And relief, too. A lot of relief.”

Which was more difficult – making the cut on Friday or the comeback on Sunday?

“Maybe tied. They were both brutally hard,” Knous said. “Your mind kind of goes all the wrong places, but I just told myself, ‘We’re going to do this.’ I just kept fighting and just proud to have done it, you know.”

Here’s to a job well done and a job for another season.

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Phil Mickelson finding putting success with a longer arm-lock model

Phil Mickelson is contending at the Fortinet Championship with a new putter and putting grip.

NAPA, Calif. — Phil Mickelson is contending this week at the season-opening Fortinet Championship and doing so with a new putter and putting grip.

Mickelson has been using a longer arm-lock model this week at Silverado Resort & Spa’s North Course and has found it mostly to his liking. He ranks fifth through three rounds in Strokes Gained: Putting.

“I just felt like I had been putting really well all week and I just needed to settle down and let one go in, not force it,” said Mickelson, who is tied for ninth at 10 under through 54 holes. He’ll start Sunday’s round four shots back of the lead. “I needed to get a couple of fairways hit because so much easier from the fairways getting to these pins. I just rolled a couple in, so it was nice.”

Right after his third round Saturday, as soon as he left the scoring area, Mickelson was on the practice putting green.

Fortinet Championship
Phil Mickelson putts on the eighth hole during round one of the Fortinet Championship at Silverado Resort and Spa on September 16, 2021 in Napa, California. Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images

“I felt like I blocked a couple putts,” he said. “I blocked two short ones, the one on 12, the one on 7, and I just wanted to work on that. So I feel like I was a little long in the stroke and kind of came up and out of it. If I keep it short and up, I can release into the finish and get the ball rolling online.”

Does he feel like he’s going to stick with this for a while?

“It’s how I putted as a kid,” he said. “I always had a lot of forward press and all it’s doing now is getting in the same position as a kid, but it’s getting to that same position every time,” explained Mickelson. “I’m not over-pressing, I’m not under-pressing, so my launch characteristics when I get on the Quintic system is very consistent and that’s what I’m looking for.”

Mickelson used this method earlier this year, starting in Memphis at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.

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Let’s hear it for Jimmy Hard K, who has nothing to lose and everything to gain at the Fortinet Championship

If you’re unfamiliar with Hard K’s story, you’re probably not alone. It’s time to catch up.

NAPA, Calif. – When Jim Knous drained an 18-foot birdie putt from the front fringe at 18, he dug into the Phil Mickelson playbook and gave a thumbs up to the crowd. It wrapped up a splendid round of 7-under 65 at Silverado Resort & Spa’s North Course and by end of day he held a share of the 54-hole lead with Maverick McNealy at the Fortinet Championship, the kickoff event of the 2021-22 PGA Tour season.

That’s pronounced Kuh-NOUSE, or as a first tee announcer on the Gateway Tour dubbed him back in 2012, Jimmy Hard K, or just Hard K for short. If you’re unfamiliar with Hard K’s story, you’re probably not alone. The 31-year-old Colorado native, who played his college golf at the Colorado School of Mines, is making just his 25th career Tour start this week after earning the last available card via the 2018 Korn Ferry Tour Finals.

But as Harold Varner III, who also was 50th on the priority ranking order when he originally got his card, put it, “Last guy to make it through medical school is still a doctor.”

Hard K notched his lone top-10 finish on the PGA Tour here in wine country in 2018, but later that season he injured his right wrist at the RBC Canadian Open and it required surgery in August 2019. Asked if the wrist is 100 percent, he said, “maybe.” He paused and said, “more like 95 percent. I’m not sure it will ever be 100 percent again.”

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He’s competing on a medical extension and is down to his two final starts. Hard K picked a good week to show off his talents. He needs to earn 152.463 FedExCup points, the equivalent of a two-way tie for third or better, to maintain full PGA Tour status, or 64.916 FedExCup points, a 12th-place finish or better, to secure conditional Tour status (No. 126-150) and full Korn Ferry Tour status.

“I’d probably be lying to say it wasn’t on my mind,” he said. “I try to put it to the back of my mind as much as I can.”

He’s trying to adopt the philosophy of his wife, Heidi, who told him this week, “Do your best, let God do the rest.”

On Saturday, his putter heated up and he made six birdies on the front nine, including five circles in a row on the scorecard beginning at the fifth. A bogey at No. 12 was a mere distraction and he rolled in birdie putts on two of the last three holes to tie for the low round of the day. Of his putting grip, which combines using a claw with his right hand and the grip going up his left forearm is something to see.

“I got a lot going on,” Hard K said. “My buddy back home, Derek, he said, ‘What are you doing with that? What is that? A Moose claw?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ I used to just use it for practice strokes and then it just feels good so I kind of went with it about a month ago and it’s been working great.”

Hard K has never entered a final round of a PGA Tour event in a position better than T-18 and now he’s going to be sleeping on a share of the 54-hole lead and will play in the final pairing. His last win? He thinks it was the 2016 San Juan Open and that he earned $15,000.

“Great community in Farmington, New Mexico,” he said. “Shout out to San Juan Country Club.”

On Sunday, he can lock up his card for the next three seasons, earn a seven-figure check and forget about having to sign up for Korn Ferry Tour Q-School. He hasn’t yet and said, “I don’t want to.”

No pressure. In addition to McNealy, a Stanford alum and Northern Cal native who is trying to win for the first time in front of hometown fans, there are 18 players within four strokes, including the Hall of Famer Phil Mickelson, World No. 22 Webb Simpson and last season’s rookie of the year Will Zalatoris. But to Hard K, he’s got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

“I just want to go out there and play with a winner’s mindset and try to win the tournament,” he said.

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