Kevin Kisner spent years chasing dream of playing in Masters
This week Kevin Kisner will hop into his black Ford F-150 King Ranch truck for his drive to Augusta National Golf Club, following a route that includes the Aiken Augusta Highway, Broad Street, John C. Calhoun Expressway and finally Washington Road before turning on to Magnolia Lane.
“Takes 22 minutes,” said Kisner, who has spent his entire life except for one year living in nearby Aiken, S.C., which, much like Augusta, relies heavily on business during Masters week.
The drive will take much longer when traffic ramps up during the first major championship of the year, but Kisner won’t mind. It will seem like a breeze compared to the journey he has taken to play for the green jacket for the first time.
Kisner, 32, spent years traveling the back roads of professional golf, pinching pennies while chasing the dream that is the PGA Tour. He played where he could, from the Hooters Tour to the Tar Heel Tour to the Nationwide Tour to the Web.com Tour.
He’ll never forget winning a Tar Heel event in Greensboro, N.C., and driving through the night to Memphis for sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open the next day. Or the time he was playing a Tar Heel event when his girlfriend and now wife, Brittany, came to see him. When she saw the hotel where he was staying, she forced him to move to a Holiday Inn.
“It felt like a five-star resort,” Kisner said of the new accommodations.
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But he kept going back out on the road with visions of Magnolia Lane dancing in his head. He won three times on the mini-tours, two more times on what is now called the Web.com Tour.
He earned his PGA Tour card in 2011 but failed to make enough money to retain it. Ditto in 2012. In 2013 he played on the Web.com Tour and earned his PGA Tour card for 2014.
He has been playing in the big leagues since.
Last year Kisner lost in three playoffs, including to Rickie Fowler in the Players Championship. He earned his invitation to the Masters when he gained a spot in The Tour Championship by Coca-Cola. And then, Nov. 22, in his 109th start on the PGA Tour, he earned his first PGA Tour win in the RSM Classic.
Over the last 14 months he has earned more than $5 million. Now, he says he gets to play where he wants instead of where he needs to.
His first April start will be the first major of the season. On the day he left for Maui to play in the year-opening, winners-only Hyundai Tournament of Champions, Kisner received his invitation to the Masters.
“When I got back from Maui, my mom had it in (her) house in a frame with a cross on it,” Kisner said. “She said she prayed enough for it that it deserved a frame with a cross.”
Sticking with it
But Kisner will never forget the days — and all those miles — on the back roads or the countless golf balls he hit that helped shape the man he is and the golfer he always knew he could be.
“All the bad hotels and the middle-of-nowhere golf courses that I played, and now I’m playing at where I consider the pinnacle of our sport. Traveling down Magnolia Lane is going to be special,” Kisner said.
“I kind of feel like we did it and we got there. We accomplished what we’ve been working for all these years, and all the time I spent pounding golf balls and working on chipping and putting, and all the downfalls that you have to deal with in golf because you lose so much, was worth it.”
Kisner likes to use “we” more than “I.” His wife and daughter, Kathleen Grace, born three days before the 2014 U.S. Open, are his rocks. His parents, Steve and Christy, always have been in his corner and provided inspiration and encouragement from Day 1.
His swing coach, John Tillery, knew Kisner had the makings to be a consistent player on Tour when they hooked up about two years ago.
“I kind of went to John with the attitude that if it doesn’t get better, I’m not going to do it anymore. It just got to the point where I was beating my head against the wall, and I was out here grinding ... to finish 13th. It’s just no fun,” Kisner said.
“The whole reason I got into this game is not really because I love golf, it’s because I love beating people and I knew out here I wasn’t going to beat people the way I was hitting. ...
“But I stuck with it.”
And Duane Bock stuck with Kisner. Bock, a mountain of a man with an equally big heart, has been Kisner’s wingman for the last seven years, a former player-turned-caddie.
Bock played professionally for 11 years on tours in the USA, Canada, Central America and South Africa. But after he made it to the second stage in the former Q School for nine consecutive years but failed to earn his playing card, he decided he wasn’t going to be a mini-tour player anymore. So he turned to caddying and wound up on Kisner’s bag.
He’ll also be going to the Masters for the first time.
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“Right when I started working for him in 2009, I remember coming home from Tour school and telling my wife, ‘This kid has it,’” said Bock, whose biggest win came in the 1992 North and South Amateur Championship at Pinehurst No. 2, where he caddied for Kisner in the 2014 U.S. Open. “It just took him a little longer to get his feet under him and get comfortable out here.”
There were lean years, like the one when Bock, who started a family toward the end of his playing days, worked three jobs to pay the bills, including sweeping floors and delivering doors near his hometown in Morganton, N.C.
When paychecks were few and mostly small, Kisner suggested Bock look for another bag. Bock wouldn’t hear of it.
“I had a family, and he knew that what he could pay me on (Web.com Tour) and what I could make on that tour was just going to be tough. That was a tough year,” Bock said of a time less than three years ago. “It’s a business for us. You’ve got to ride the waves, the highs and lows. I just remember I told my wife I’m not jumping ship.
“I stuck with him, and he stuck with me, and he changed swing coaches and everything else. He showed me a lot of loyalty and I showed him loyalty, and that bond has gotten stronger.”
Kisner was only thinking of Bock’s welfare when he suggested he look elsewhere. Since they started working together, Kisner has never wanted anyone else to carry his bag.
“We’ve been through everything together in my professional career once I got to a tour where you had to have a caddie,” Kisner said. “Guys always asked me, ‘Why don’t you make a change?’ Well, he’s not hitting the ball into trouble. He’s not three-putting those greens. He’s just giving me the correct information; I’m just not doing my part.
“I’m glad we stuck together and he’s finally getting some reward out of it, and I hope I pay him a zillion dollars over the next 10 years. He’s been nothing but good for me. He’s a great family guy, and it’s who I want on my team.”
Special partnership
These teammates form an unusual bond. Bock is 14 years Kisner’s senior and there are plenty of differences. But somehow the partnership works.
“I’m not sure how well we click,” Kisner said with a smile. “He’s a Yankee and I’m a redneck. We give him hell, John (Tillery) and I do, and when he’s in a grumpy mood I’m thinking like here comes the Yankee in him. Seriously, we have a lot of fun, and I think we just know each other very well.”
Kisner likes the way Bock prepares. “He always had all the information, and he’s on time,” he said. “Doesn’t get drunk. He’s out here to work, he’s not out here to play. And hell, at times I know he’s been broke working for me, because we didn’t make any money, and for him to stick it out says as much about him as it says about me.”
Heading to the Masters won’t be a buddy trip for Kisner and Bock. While it will be a dream-come-true moment for the kid who grew up living the Masters every year because of the proximity of his hometown, there’s work to do.
“It’s not a vacation,” Bock said.
Their work started in February. Kisner has played the course about 15 to 20 times, but Bock stepped onto the grounds for the first time in February. Two local caddies accompanied the two during practice rounds as Kisner played with Jeff Knox, an Augusta National member and amateur champion who serves as the designated marker for the tournament.
Bock was in the ears of the caddies, Kisner in the ear of Knox.
“I think he’s getting sick of me I’ve called him so much,” Kisner said. “He knows how to putt those greens and chip to those greens. I have a lot of notes in my books that I’m going to kind of compile into one and have that as my bible for the week around the greens.”
Bock also will rely on the caddie fraternity to gather knowledge about one of the most unique courses in the world, with slopes and all sorts of side-hill, downhill and uphill lies. And, of course, the treacherous greens.
Kisner said the first six holes of the tournament will be key.
“I’m such a process guy that I’m always sticking to my plan, so I don’t get too caught up in thinking, ‘Oh my God, I made it to Augusta.’ I’m more into the preparation for the week and looking to win,” Kisner said. “If I can get off to a decent start, I think I can get into a groove for the week. All the other stuff is what I’m trying to take care of before to make it feel like any other week.”
But deep down, he knows it won’t be like any other week. Not for the high school kid who dreamed of hitting the perfect tee shot on the 16th hole and making the putt to wrap up the Masters. Not for the man who drove all those back roads thinking about what he would do with the green jacket if he ever won the Masters.
“I probably wouldn’t take it off until we had to play again at RBC Heritage on Thursday,” the following week in Hilton Head, S.C., he said. “Probably just wear it through the night and sleep in it on Sunday. And definitely wear it driving my truck to Hilton Head.”