Every day he had a different task and he carried them out to the letter. On Thursday he walked barefoot around the practice field of the Silverado Resort. On Friday he hugged a tree. On Saturday he hummed a Disney song. And on Sunday, from the balcony of the clubhouse, he sang a rap whose lyrics and music had been sent to his mobile. All of this was done by Patton Kizzire before winning the Procore Championship, the first tournament of the autumn series of the PGA Tour, his first victory in six years, the third of his career on the American circuit.
It’s no joke, nor an exaggeration. These are the unconventional methods of Aimee Smith-Schuster, a psychologist who lives near Sea Island, Georgia, and with whom Kizzire has started working less than a month ago. “I admit that at first I was a bit sceptical –the 38-year-old golfer pointed out at the end of the tournament– but it’s simply about bringing light to life, not taking oneself too seriously, doing silly things and breaking the ice, not much more,” he explains.
The mind, of course, is fundamental. Nobody doubts it anymore. But in the end it’s obviously about playing golf. This aspect has been resolved for a long time. Justin Parsons, Kizzire’s coach, was this week at the Silverado Resort. “Technically he was just as good six months ago, when he missed six cuts in a row… or just before the Wyndham, when he was fighting to finish among the top 125 of the FedEx and also missed the last two cuts. The problem was something else,” he explains.
Dean Emerson, Kizzire’s caddie, can attest that his boss’s swing was in perfect condition. He suffered it in his own body. Parsons invented a game the Tuesday before the tournament. They were on the practice field. Every time Kizzire nailed the number he was asked with a shot, Emerson had to do 10 push-ups. At the end of the day he had done 150. “I told him: your game is at the level of the best player in the world,” Parsons asserts. If Kizzire has always stood out for something, it has been for his extraordinary, almost supernatural, control of distances.
Smith-Schuster’s exercises were aimed at loosening up, disconnecting from the competition. Kizzire and Emerson had to record a video singing the rap on Sunday and the Disney song on Saturday. Both were chosen by the psychologist. For the second one she chose the “heigh ho, heigh ho…” from Snow White. “She’s a bit crazy, she makes us do weird things,” the caddie points out. And who cares if it works. “She kept in touch with us and made me reinforce it during the tournament, saying things like: ‘You are unflappable’. Confidence boosters. It was great.”
As an extra measure, the champion decided to write in his Silverado measurement book a phrase: “I am here and now”. It was his way of combating the danger of getting ahead in a golf tournament. He went out with a four-shot lead and never got his distance down to less than two. “I had to read it several times and it worked,” he admits.
Kizzire won the Procore Championship with a two-shot lead over David Lipsky and has moved from 132nd to 70th in the FedEx Cup. Of course, he has secured the card for next year. Six years ago he won two tournaments in less than two months. Watch out for Kizzire in the coming weeks.
“I would meet with him around 12:30, we would make the videos and send them. That was our preparation for the day. Every morning he would ask me: What is she going to make us do today? Is there water on the field? Is she going to make us swim naked?”, Emerson recounts.
They would have done it. There was no doubt.
The other big move of the week was Lipsky’s. With his solo second he has moved from 163rd in the FedEx to 101st, almost assured card, while Mackenzie Hughes, who finished fourth, remains in the fight to get into the top 50 to play all the designated ones next year.
If in a few weeks you are going to play a golf tournament and when it comes to giving balls you find fifteen or twenty players hugging a tree, you know where the story comes from…
