Kevin Kisner Dominates The RSM Classic

He finished with a six-under round at the Seaside course at Sea Island for a tournament record 22-under-par 260 total.

Overnight leader Chappell, who dropped shots at the second and third, was two behind with five to play but drew level when he followed up Kisner’s sole bogey of the day, at the 14th, with a birdie at 15.

It didn’t work so well for the 21-year-old son of Davis Love III, who grew up in the Golden Isles and missed the cut in his PGA Tour debut.

The 31-year-old from SC played so well this year that he rose to No. 25 in the world.

While defeats are said to make one stronger there is always the possibility that continued failure can chip away at one’s confidence, but that was never an option for Kisner.

“Today I wish I was caddying”, Love said.

Two more birdies closed out his front nine and the only way Chappell or McDowell could have caught Kisner after that would be a few disasters. At the par-3 17th, he left his 6-iron tee shot inches from the hole for a tap-in birdie.

“That was the hardest thing I had to deal with all day”, he said. He became the first player in almost 70 years to lose three times in a playoff.

This one wasn’t even close. “If you do that around here, you can make a lot of birdies, which is what you need to do”.

“Same club was 20 feet short of the pin in regulation and goes over the green in the playoff”, Kisner said.

Pebble Beach: Jeff Gove shot his third straight 3-under 69 to take a one-stroke lead over three players in the Pebble Beach Invitational. 2 and 4, then hit an approach out of a fairway bunker at No. 5 to within 15 feet, and made the putt. For all his second-place finishes, all he wanted was a big lead going to the final hole.

Kisner led The RSM Classic after 54 holes, and he was trying to hold that lead early in Sunday’s round over playing partners Graeme McDowell and Kevin Chappell.

“Five strokes was pretty nice”, he said.

With the win, Kisner jumps up from eighth in the FedEx Cup standings to first place as the PGA Tour heads into a winter hiatus. Official play begins again on January 7, 2016 at the Tournament of Champions at the Kapalua Resort on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where the tournament winners from the 2015 calendar year (not the 2014-2015 season) are in the field.

If his weekend show on the Seaside Course was any indication, just because Kisner finally has that Tour trophy he’s waited so long for doesn’t mean he’s going to be appeased.