When the small white ball went into the cup on the 18th hole at PGA National early Sunday evening, officially ending the Honda Classic in a sudden-death playoff, Chris Kirk’s mind, body, and soul were flooded with feelings.
The 37-year-old journeyman, who is about as unremarkable as you can be next to the megastars who rule the PGA Tour right now, won a tournament for the first time in 2,836 days and for the first time since he quit drinking.
“I thought about how thankful I am for the things that have happened in my life over the past few years, how thankful I am for the people who helped me get back to where I am now, and how thankful I am that my wife stuck with me and believed in me when she probably shouldn’t have,” Kirk told The Post on Thursday that he was two shots behind Jon Rahm after the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This was after he won the Honda Open and then shot a 5-under-par 67 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “I felt like the luckiest person on earth.”
Kirk’s first round at Bay Hill on Thursday didn’t seem to have much luck to it. He had seven birdies in between a bogey on his first hole and another on his last.
Jordan Spieth, who played with Kirk, said, “Seven birdies after a bogey on the first hole and then a bogey on the last hole is pretty solid.” “He shot a 5-under, which isn’t too exciting.”
Chris Kirk.
Which makes sense, since Kirk is one of the most low-key golfers on the PGA Tour. He is quiet, thoughtful, and polite, and neither he nor his game have the slightest bit of flash.
This is what made Kirk the perfect alcoholic, which means that he is an alcoholic but no one knows it. His lack of confidence was the perfect cover.
Kirk said on social media the day before his 34th birthday in May 2019 that he would be taking a “indefinite leave” from golf to deal with his alcoholism and depression.
He had won four times on the PGA Tour, and after his fourth win at the Colonial in 2015, he was ranked 16th in the world.
Kirk wasn’t sure he’d ever come back when he left. He was ranked 188th and his life was a mess.
“When I got back home, I didn’t think I wanted to play at all for at least three months,” he said. “Being on the road puts pressure on you and makes you feel alone… I thought golf was to blame, but it’s clear that wasn’t the case.”
Kirk’s return to the game and getting help for his alcoholism were both done in a methodical way.
“After a while, I wanted to play golf for fun again, and I was playing with some friends every Friday,” he said. “Then, over the next few months, it slowly came back to the point where I thought, ‘I’d like to try this again.’ I wanted to show myself that I was still good enough and that I could still do this. But at that time, I didn’t think much about winning on Tour.
During the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Chris Kirk talks to his caddie.
That’s why Sunday night at the Honda was so much for him to handle.
Kirk said, “It wouldn’t have worked if I had gone home, gotten some help, and then come back out here two months later.”
Since Kirk returned to the PGA Tour in November 2019 at the Mayakoba Golf Classic with a world ranking of 303, he has gone out of his way to avoid the things that made him drink himself to sleep during tournament weeks.
“Since then, I don’t think I’ve stayed at a hotel by myself more than a few times,” he said. “I don’t worry about a relapse because I have so many bad memories of drinking alone in hotel rooms.”
Now, Kirk rents a house near each tournament site with some of his best friends on the tour, like Sepp Straka, Grayson Murray, Brendan Todd, and Denny McCarthy. That keeps him from doing nothing and being by himself.
“You shoot 75, get mad for a minute, then go back to the house and play cards or dice, shoot some pool, throw a baseball, watch a movie, or just hang out,” he said. “My life is a thousand times better because of it.”
Kirk has gone from not winning in 2,836 days to winning one day at a time, and he has never been happier.
