AUSTIN — You probably already know that Kevin Kisner is one of America’s best match play golfers. Coming into this year’s WGC-Dell Match Play, he was 16-6-1 all-time in the event, including a championship match run in 2018 (he lost to Bubba Watson) and a title the next year, when he beat Matt Kuchar in the final.
This year has been no different, with three straight victories in the group stages. He beat Justin Thomas on Friday to improve his record to 20-6-1, and reach the round of 16. There, he met Adam Scott, and Scott was ready for him. By the time they reached the 15th tee, Kisner was 3-down with just four to play?
So, how good were his chances of winning at that point? Enter the 21st Group’s Justin Ray, who looked at every single match that had reached that point—or worse—in the history of the Match Play at Austin. In short, literally nobody had ever turned it around from that deficit:
Ray confirmed that it had not happened earlier this week, which brought the total close to (if not past) 200 times without an 18-hole win.
So what did Kisner do? He won four straight holes, a stretch that included this absolutely devastating hole-out from the bunker on 16:
He won 17, and when he finished the job on 18 with a birdie putt, he had done what’s never been done in 200 tries in Austin—won from three down with four to play. Not a bad way for one of the world’s match play giants to get his 20th WGC win.