Kisner gives himself a major shot
Determined castoff from other sports tied for lead with Japan’s Matsuyama
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — He was the basketball player who wasn’t tall enough, the football player who got crushed. So Kevin Kisner, a feisty sort who enjoyed the camaraderie and competition of team sports, took the advice of a high school coach who told him, “I think you ought to stick to golf.”
For a while, lacking confidence in his ball-striking — the very essence of the game — it seemed he was stuck with golf. “I was like, ‘I got no chance the way I’m hitting it,’ ” said Kisner of his early days as pro in the minor leagues, the Web.Com Tour. Quail Hollow, Charlotte, N.C. Today-Sunday. Today’s TV: TNT, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; CBS (Chs. 9, 13), 2-7 p.m. Leaders: 8-under — Kevin Kisner, Hideki Matsuyama 6-under — Jason Day 5-under — Louis Oosthuizen, Chris Stroud, Francesco Molinari
He’s got a chance now, a chance to win a major, the PGA Championship, a great chance. With a bit of arrogance and a great deal of determination, and the help of a teaching pro named John Tillery, Kisner rebuilt his swing. “It was so bad,” Kisner said, “I was shanking in the middle of the fairway.”
Now it’s good that along that, along with a short game and putting skill Kisner always possessed, he’s tied for the lead with red hot Hideki Matsuyama in the PGA, which Friday despite a 1-hour, 43-minute weather suspension almost made it through the second round.
Kisner, done early, long before play was halted at 4:43 p.m., shot a second consecutive 4-under 67 at Quail Hollow. Matsuyama, winner of last weekend’s Bridgestone, roared in late with a 64. Both are at 8-under 134.
Third at 6-under 136 after a 66 is Jason Day, the 2015 PGA winner and 2016 runnerup, while Francesco Molinari, Louis Oosthuizen and Chris Stroud are at 5-under 137. Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas and Paul Casey are at 139.
The names, the guys around whom the pre-tournament stories were constructed, Jordan Spieth, trying to win a career Grand Slam? Brooks Koepka, after stomping the Kevin Kisner made an eagle on the seventh hole during the second round of the PGA Championship, helping him shoot a 67.