Kevin Kisner keeps perspective with lifelong friend battling brain tumor

Joel McAlhaney had texted Kevin Kisner on Saturday night after he made it to the semifinals of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play Championship last month.

Send a plane and we’re coming. Or, words to that affect.

“I said, well, if you get here you can ride home with me,” Kisner recalls with a smile.

Turns out, McAlhaney and his brother, Jason, didn’t need any more encouragement. They left Aiken, South Carolina, around 5 a.m. and boarded a plane to Texas, bound and determined to be there for what would turn out to be the biggest win of Kisner’s career.

Kisner first spotted them in the gallery on the seventh hole during his match with Francesco Molinari on Sunday morning. He went on to win 1 up, then took down Matt Kuchar 3 and 2 for the championship, a year after finishing runner-up at the same event.

The McAlhaneys and Kisner are lifelong friends – but that’s only part of this story. Joel, who is in his early 30s, recently found out he had a brain tumor and is receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.

Perspective, as they say, is a powerful thing.

“I went and grabbed them in between matches out there on Sunday and they came and sat in the locker room with me and we just hung out for about 30 minutes,” Kisner says. “You know, that makes that final match not so, in perspective, not such a big deal.

“He's dealing with it way better than most probably. He's got a great attitude.”

Kisner had another real-life moment earlier that week after he learned a friend of his caddy, Duane Bock, had died after a battle with ALS. Bock had been wearing his buddy’s initials on his hat for months, and when he came to the course on Wednesday, Kisner noticed the letters R-I-P underneath.

“I don't know what happened to me when I won (the tournament) and gave him a hug,” Kisner recalls of the celebration. “But I tapped the side of his head where he had written his initials.

“So that's something we'll always remember for sure.”

Kisner says McAlhaney’s tumor, which was discovered after Joel had a seizure while driving, is in the part of the brain that controls his motor skills. He’s currently undergoing chemotherapy in an attempt to shrink the mass. Doctors don’t want to operate now, though, for fear of paralysis.

“He's a good kid and he's gonna, we're gonna, beat it,” Kisner says firmly. “He's so young that we think if they prolong it long enough, that’s what they’re saying; they prolong it long enough they think they can have a cure in 10 years. That’s the goal.”

Joel and Jason walked the final 11 holes of his match with Molinari, as well as the 16 he played against Kuchar. Kisner says his buddy was tired aftrer the marathon day– but most of all he was cold, both from the unseasonably chilly temperatures in Austin and the lingering effects of the chemotherapy.

“So, he was actually searching for pants in the pro shop when I found him … because he wore shorts out there,” Kisner says, grinning. “He's like, man, I didn't know it was, I thought we were coming to Texas. It's freezing out here.”

Kisner, who is playing this week in the RBC Heritage, most recently saw Joel on the Sunday prior to the Masters. He was playing in a tournament at Palmetto Golf Club in Aiken, and Kisner’s daughter Kathleen had set up a lemonade stand in their backyard.

Joel, who had beaten Kisner in the state junior when the future TOUR star was a senior in high school, took a break from the competition to buy a drink from her and make a donation to Kisner’s foundation.

“So, that was really cool,” he says.

And the two made a wager on Tuesday night’s Georgia-Clemson baseball game. The Bulldogs won the 20-inning marathon, and Kisner, a 2006 Georgia grad, won the bet with the big-time Clemson fan.

“I said, did you make it ‘til the end,” Kisner said. “He said that he had to. … I didn't make it, I fell asleep.”

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the Dell Technologies Match Play champion made good on the return trip from Austin.

“We all flew home together and that was a lot of fun too,” Kisner says. “You know, he was so cool, but he was so fired up that I won, and they were so pumped. I was so tired and just want to go home and they wanted to go hang out and show everybody that I won.

“But I'm just glad he was there to enjoy it.”