Party guy Knost has reason to celebrate
Golfer, 30, finally playing as well as he expected
His given name would play well in a Western, while his nickname is an ear-opener (although he doesn’t have any idea of its origin). He once turned down an invitation to play in the Masters. And Colt “The Big Gravy” Knost certainly didn’t jump on the fitness bandwagon that swept the PGA Tour.
No, Knost is not your prototypical professional golfer, choosing instead to fly in the face of norm. Listed as 5-9 and 215 pounds, Knost has always been comfortable in his own skin.
“I’m a guy who enjoys the good things in life. I like to have a good time and party. I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” said Knost, who added he had been known to do a push-up or two on occasion.
Well, he’s having a blast right now. While he won’t be featured in Muscle & Fitness anytime soon, his game is certainly in suitable shape heading into Thursday’s start of the Dean & DeLuca Invitational at Colonial in Fort Worth.
Six weeks after fearing his season was over — his ailing left thumb didn’t require surgery and instead just needed rest — Knost rolled into Colonial on the heels of consecutive top-four results. He tied for third in The Players Championship, where he equaled the course record at TPC Sawgrass with a 63 in the second round, and tied for fourth last weekend in the AT&T Byron Nelson.
At 30, he is ranked a careerbest 98th in the world and is one of the favorites this week on a course where precision trumps power and you have to shape your ball around the tree-lined course.
“Just riding a lot of confidence right now,” said Knost, who has made 16 of 17 cuts this season. “I feel great about what I’m doing. Keep putting myself in there with a chance to win, and I think I should have a great chance this week.”
After a stellar amateur career that included wins in the 2007 U.S. Amateur and U.S. Amateur Public Links, Knost thought he’d have a great chance to win every week in the pros, too. He passed on the 2008 Masters, where he would have played as the reigning Amateur and Public Links champion, and turned pro instead. All seemed right when he won twice on the Web.com Tour and earned his PGA Tour card for 2009.
However, he’s still seeking his first Tour title.
“Coming out of college, I was confident that I would have a pretty big career early. ... Honestly, I took everything for granted,” said Knost, who returned to the Web.com Tour in 2010 after failing to keep his Tour card. He attended SMU.
“Kind of thought I could cruise and have a great career and I’d get out here and I’d win early and all that. It just didn’t work out that way. I didn’t put in the work I felt like I needed to, and I had to sit myself down a few years ago … and I had to kind of rethink things and get back to work and put golf as a priority.”
A move to Scottsdale, Ariz., from his longtime home in Dallas in the offseason was a boost, the change in venue allowing him to practice in better weather and face colleagues such as Kevin Chappell and Graham DeLaet on a regular basis.
Hiring short-game guru Gabriel Hjertstedt 18 months ago also proved beneficial, especially alongside his continued work with swing coach Randy Smith.
“Winning ’s very tough out here. I honestly thought the way I’m playing now would happen a lot earlier in my career, but it didn’t,” Knost said. “I think at every level, whether it be junior golf, college golf or professional golf, I’ve been a little bit of a slow starter and gotten better as the years go on, and that’s kind of how I’m just taking this. ...
“I know I’m good enough to win. I’ve won at every level except for this one, and I just think it’s going to come eventually.”
And if it does, Knost will go on being Knost.
“I enjoy celebrating good weeks and bad weeks. That’s always going to be there,” he said. “It’s just I don’t do it as much as I used to. I like to have a good time, but I realize this is what I want to do for a living, and you can obviously make a very good living at doing it here. I want to make a very long career out of this, so I decided to put in the work and get back to it.”