Kevin Kisner looking for return to form after hot start at the Sanderson Farms Championship

Even a multi-time PGA TOUR winner can get brought down by golf. A tricky game that’s mentally taxing can put you in a rut that’s tough to get out of.

Kevin Kisner is the latest example.

He took most of the summertime stretch off after withdrawing from the Travelers Championship. He was 7-over par through nine holes when he decided to head home.

Kisner returned to action at the Fortinet Championship with a renewed perspective on the game, made the cut and got off to a dream-like start Thursday at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

He shot a 5-under 67 – including hitting 16 of 18 greens along the way – and was firmly inside the top 10 as the morning wave concluded.

Kisner said he wants to be “a fixer” all the time and was keen to hurry up and fix whatever was wrong with his game and his swing. He couldn’t. The more he tried in early 2023, the worse it got. He was “just done,” at the Travelers Championship, he said.

Kisner, who was part of the winning United States Presidents Cup team at Quail Hollow in 2022, last won on the PGA TOUR at the Wyndham Championship in 2021. He slipped all the way to the 199th on the FedExCup standings at the end of the TOUR Championship, however, after making only five cuts in 15 events in the 2022-23 season. Nothing was going right.

Kisner admitted he struggled at the end of college and again when he made it to the Korn Ferry Tour. The downs, he said, often come along on seven or eight-year cycles.

“It's tough mentally […] playing poorly physically and then mentally not really wanting to be there because you know how poorly you're playing,” Kisner said. “The time away was super helpful. Had a lot of people helping me, and now it's just relentless perseverance and keep trying to gain progress and not perfection.”

One of the people that helped Kisner was Steve Stricker. One thing Kisner picked up from Stricker was to not play every week. Just go figure out what works and dig it out of the dirt at home.

“I’m just going to follow Stricker’s playbook,” Kisner said in a recent interview.

Kisner admitted Thursday he was starting to hit some drivers “off the planet,” which he had never done before. So, he didn’t know how to fix it. He started really grinding in the middle of August, though, working with swing coach John Tillery, the guy who first got Kisner on track about 10 years ago.

Kisner is also chipping cross-handed, something he’s done for about a year. He asked Matt Fitzpatrick about it and Kisner was immediately converted.

“I hit one, and I was like, ‘holy cow why did I spend so much time working on my technique'. That seemed pretty easy,” Kisner said. “But I still practice regular-handed trying to figure it out because we’re all maniacs out here.”

Kisner’s 5-under 67 at The Country Club of Jackson was his lowest round on TOUR since February. And while there is still time to go at the Sanderson Farms Championship – and in the FedExCup Fall – a fine start is a fine start. He’ll take it.

“It was good to have some time away, and now I’m excited to be here. I’m excited to work on it,” Kisner said. “I’m excited to see the progress.”