Mitchell Meissner joins brother Mac for 2023 Korn Ferry Tour campaign

The first time Mac Meissner made a hole-in-one, it came on the last hole of a match against his brother, Mitchell, when they were 13. His first ace, and his first time beating his big bro.

The brothers haven’t actually competed in tournaments very much together – only one season of high school golf – but that’s all going to change in 2023 on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Mac Meissner finished 46th on the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Points List and will be heading back out for another crack at earning PGA TOUR status. Mitchell, meanwhile, topped the PGA TOUR Latinoamerica Totalplay Cup to lock in a full year on the Korn Ferry Tour for the first time in his career.

He's hoping the pivoted approach to his routine that saw him have a ton of success on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica will serve him well in 2023, too – with his brother alongside.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Mitchell Meissner. “He had a decent year last year on the Korn Ferry Tour on the (Points List) and I feel like I can compete with him day-in and day-out, so my thinking is if he had a decent year and finished in the top 50, if we both have good years next year, why can’t we sneak into the top 30?”

Meissner had nine top-10 finishes on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica last season en route to topping the Totalplay Cup. It was as steady a season as anyone could ask for – not including a victory – and included an early-season run that featured a stretch of T3-T2-T3-2. That final second-place result came, perhaps more impressively, after he opened with a 75. He was 10 shots better the second day.

Looking at the stats at the end of the season, Meissner noticed his second-round scoring average was about a shot better than the next closest player on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica.

He had a mental shift, he said, about how he was going to approach things this year. It paid off in a big way.

“I’ve done the pro golf thing for three or four years now, and being in contention sucks,” he said with a laugh. “You play well, and you come in the top five or top 10 and then the next week you only hit nine greens per round and you’re on the cut line. It’s just not fun at all. But the consistency early in the season lent itself to my confidence shift, like, ‘Oh, I’m good, I can compete out here’ … instead of being in the first two rounds thinking, ‘Oh, what’s the cut going to be?’ I was thinking about where the leader was going to be.”

Meissner, who majored in economics in college and loved math growing up, was keen to see how the numbers looked this last year. Things were not bad at all, as he led PGA TOUR Latinoamerica in scoring average. He was steady and consistent, and he said a lot had to do with a total shift in how he was approaching things week-to-week. His Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were almost always the same for each tournament week. He’d travel with the same group. Stay with the same group. It was a lot of copy-and-paste, but it worked out pretty darn well.

“A lot of what transpired was a confidence shift. I worked really hard in the offseason just becoming more consistent with more than just my golf game,” said Meissner. “Part of it had to do with how it was my third year down (on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica) but I found a really good group of guys to travel with and … week-in and week-out, I’d do the exact same thing and I think a lot of that helped me with consistency.

“In 2021 we focused on doing the same thing in my routine golf-wise before I hit a shot, and I don’t know it was subconscious that I would take that consistency and turn it into results … but I lend a lot of the success to that. Would obviously love to take that next year.”

Meissner said he’s always had a similar-type action as he’s inched up golf’s ladder. Of note, however, this righty putts left-handed. He switched in his senior year of college, and it’s been “consistently decent” since then. He was battling mental issues on the greens as a senior in college, but the switch provoked a desire to chase a career in professional golf.

“I’d hit 15 greens per round, but I’d shoot even par or 1 over par and I was like, ‘This sucks.’ That was a big reason for my switch and decision to try to play pro golf,” said Meissner, who became more motivated than ever to get over the hump after moving sides with the flatstick.

Between his buttoned-up routine and now his brother alongside, Meissner heads into the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour campaign with plenty of confidence and a nice supporting cast to boot.

“(Last year) I was playing some of the best golf in my professional life and I thought I could compete on any Tour,” said Meissner. “I’m hoping to take that confidence and similar style of focus on my routine and on the controllables into the Korn Ferry Tour and see where that lands me.

“Mac and I are very close, and you’re definitely rooting for success. If I’m not playing well or even if I am in a Korn Ferry Tour event, I still want Mac to play well. I would like nothing more than for he and I go to into a playoff for a win.”