David Lipsky and Patton Kizzire shake hands after Kizzire’s victory at the Procore Championship. Jed Jacobsohn, Getty Images
It’s easy to dismiss the fall section of the PGA Tour season as an afterthought, a collection of tournaments in vaguely familiar places filled with players who are at best vaguely familiar themselves. Many observers probably see it as the tour’s version of off-Broadway golf or community theater, a place for the understudies and the wannabes. That’s true, to a point. The PGA Tour’s stars have packed up and gone home and left the smaller stages and smaller purses for the in-betweeners, those guys trying to hold on to what they have and the others trying to lock down what they don’t yet have.
Then Patton Kizzire and David Lipsky happen, and there are faces and stories attached to last week’s Procore Championship in Napa, California, and what may seem small and relatively insignificant in the new signature event world takes on more meaning. After the stars take their season-ending bows in the Presidents Cup next week, the tour goes to Jackson, Mississippi; Ivins, Utah; and Las Vegas, Nevada, before three international events leading to the season finale at Sea Island, Georgia. It’s not the West Coast Swing, the Florida Swing or that springtime stretch when it feels as if every week is bigger than the week before. But more stories will unfold, more careers will turn, and more moments will become memories. That’s where Kizzire and Lipsky come into sharper focus.
As difficult as winning on the PGA Tour is, there are times when it feels as simple as being someone’s turn. It’s not as easy as wishing it into being – there are hours of grinding practice and putting the personal pieces in the right places – but turning the why into why not can make the difference. More than any swing tweak, that’s what Kizzire did. He recently began working with a sports psychologist and the message was about inner peace and keeping his head where his feet are. In his yardage book last week, Kizzire wrote a simple message to himself: “I am here, I am now.”
It meant that Kizzire helped the course staff pick up range balls, walking barefoot while he did so. It meant having chipping contests with some kids hanging around one of the practice greens before he teed it up some days. “I was a little skeptical, but it’s just bringing light to life, not taking yourself so seriously, doing silly stuff and just breaking the ice, you know? I think there is something to that calm that you get just kind of being outside barefoot and stuff like that,” Kizzire said.
Last November, Kizzire got teary-eyed at the conclusion of the RSM Classic at Sea Island near his home because he failed to finish in the top 125 in points, coming in at 129th to miss having full eligibility this year. “I was very emotional there at the end of the year because I had put a lot in and didn’t get a lot out. But I’ve been so passionate about this game for so long, it’s just a journey,” Kizzire said. “There’s obstacles just one after another in golf and in life. You’ve just got to keep going. It feels really, really sweet for the hard work to pay off. I still have a lot of improving to do. I’m going to enjoy this win.”
At age 36, Lipsky has been golf’s version of a factory worker, trying to make his own big break. He did it at the Procore Championship, essentially locking up his full tour privileges next year. For Lipsky, finishing second had its own personal rewards. Before last week, Lipsky had just two top-five finishes in 104 tour starts and he was languishing in 163rd place in points, hoping to find in the fall what’s been missing.
“That’s a small victory, and that was sort of what my goal was going into the fall was just play consistent, play solid and sort of lock up my card for the next year. I’m in a good spot to keep my card. It is where I’ve always dreamed of playing. I was pretty depressed through the middle of the season with my game, and I couldn’t be happier right now. It means the world to me.”
