Chris Kirk, One of Golf’s ‘People to Pull for’, Is in Contention at the BMW Championship

The 38-year-old skipped a designated event to play a “smaller” tournament—and won. Now, he has a shot to cap a career-changing year with another victory.

OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. — One of the field-good stories of the golf year did not occur at a major championship, nor at the Players Championship or one of the newly-created designated events.

In fact, Chris Kirk actually skipped one of the bigger tournaments in order to play one of the “smaller” ones, then went on to win, changing the trajectory of his career and his professional life.

Kirk, who has been open about battling alcoholism and depression, won the Honda Classic in late February, his first victory since 2015. It came a week after he had skipped the Genesis Invitational, a designated event that had a smaller field and a $20 million purse.

“I missed the cut in Phoenix and after that I was just like, I’m going to go home, I’m going to play Honda, Bay Hill (the Arnold Palmer Invitational), Players like I normally do,” said Kirk, who is in second place behind just Max Homa at the BMW Championship, where he shot a second-round 66 Friday at Olympia Fields Country Club. “So yes, I made that kind of late change, and it worked all right.” 

It worked out well enough that Kirk has had a career season that saw him not only qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs but also the BMW Championship, which means he is assured of a spot in all of the designated events—now called signature events—for 2024.

That means Kirk will be eligible for the Sentry, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Genesis Invitational, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the RBC Heritage, the Wells Fargo Championship, the Memorial and the Travelers Championship.

Kirk has four top-10 finishes this year, including his win at the Honda Classic :: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Seven of those events will have $20 million purses and five will have no cut. Do the math, and Kirk can count on a nice windfall of guaranteed money, enhanced the better he plays.

And if Kirk can make it to next week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta for the top 30 in FedEx Cup points—he started this week 29th—he’ll ensure himself a spot in at least three of the major championships. 

But Kirk offers an excellent example of how some good stories emerged from the events that did not bring all the best players together.

His Honda victory over Eric Cole was one. So was Nick Taylor’s win at the RBC Canadian Open, where he became the first Canadian to win the tournament since 1954. And then there was Lucas Glover’s overcoming a serious case of putting yips to win the Wyndham Championship two weeks ago.

“I think they’re doing a good job next year of not having too many of the signature events,” Kirk said. “There's going to be a handful, and those are going to be huge tournaments and they're going to be really big.

“But it certainly leaves room in the schedule. I’ll be playing all the signature events but I’ll be playing a lot of other regular events, too, and I think a lot of the top players in the world will also be able to play a good many handful of other ones. ... There’s always stories and all there’s always people to pull for.”

Kirk, who said he “owed everything in my life to sobriety,” was one of those stories this year.

But following the Honda victory, his only top-10 finish came at the Valero Texas Open. He missed six cuts, including two weeks ago at the Wyndham Championship, to slip down the FedEx points list.

“It’s been interesting the last few months, I haven’t played particularly well and have been working really hard on my game,” he said. “We’ve been going at it and just kind of felt like I’ve been beating my head against the wall a little bit.

“But thankfully all of a sudden last week in Memphis after the first round felt like more of the same and kind of started to gain a little bit of momentum, played well the last three days, and the changes or tweaks that I’ve made in my golf swing are finally starting to get comfortable.’’

Like all golfers, Kirk said it was difficult to maintain the high level he found at the Honda Classic.

“It doesn’t linger that long, unfortunately,” he said. “It certainly makes it where the little bad stretches are a little bit more bearable because it’s not like you’re grinding to try to make the first playoff event or grinding to try to keep your card. That is a lot more pressure and a lot more frustrating than where I was after not playing great for a few weeks.

“It’s nice looking back on those things, but sometimes in your game you can be two weeks separated from winning a tournament, and it feels like a distant memory. You just never know.”

Kirk heads into the weekend at Olympia Fields with another opportunity to win. If not, he’s at least put himself in position to qualify for the Tour Championship—a tournament he has not played since 2014.