Kevin Kisner has suggested the reason why he believes that several players have struggled to get over the line and win a PGA Tour event this season having given themselves a commanding lead.
Ludvig Aberg became the latest player to stumble when he seemingly had a tournament victory within his grasp. The Swede went into the final round of The Players Championship with a three-shot lead.
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Unfortunately, he found the water on 11 and 12 on Sunday to fall out of contention, leaving the path clear for Cameron Young and Matthew Fitzpatrick to battle it out at TPC Sawgrass.
Kevin Kisner suggests why PGA Tour players are struggling to close out tournaments
Young’s eventual victory came just a week after Akshay Bhatia clinched a dramatic playoff victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.
Daniel Berger had led for the large majority of the week after a stunning 63 on Thursday. However, he ran out of steam and lost on the first additional hole.
And of course, Shane Lowry managed to conspire to lose the Cognizant Classic as he made two double bogeys in the final three holes at PGA National.
Photo by Raj Mehta/Getty Images
Elsewhere, the likes of Hideki Matsuyama and Bhatia himself have failed to convert 54 hole leads this season. Jacob Bridgeman nearly squandered a sizeable advantage heading into Sunday at the Genesis Invitational.
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Speaking on the Fore Play Podcast following Aberg’s final round at the weekend, Kevin Kisner suggested why he believes players are finding it so difficult to get across the line.
“I think it’s the length at which they’ve held the lead. They’re holding the leads longer than we normally see. Berger was leading wire to wire, that just weighs on you, man. Four days in a row of everyone chasing me. Ludvig basically for 36 hours, 48 hours, everybody’s chasing him. That continuous pressure that you feel as you’re out there on an island by yourself. I think it just weighs on you,” he said.
“When you’re being chased, everyone else is chasing, so they’re all systems go, foot on the pedal at all times, and you’re just trying to do your status quo, continue doing what you’re doing because you’re playing great, and suddenly you look up and you’re like, man, everyone’s catching me. Now I’ve got to go, and it’s just a hard situation to be in. I always felt like if I was within one or tied for the lead, it was easier on my mental space to be playing to go win the golf tournament because now it’s like I’ve just got to beat you heads-up.
“It’s so easy, no matter how hard you try when you have a three, four shot lead to be like, alright man, I’ve just got to keep doing what I’m doing, and you kind of forget these dudes are good, they’re going to keep making birdies. Somebody is going to shoot 65, I’ve got to keep my foot on the gas pedal. And I think that is such a difficult thing over the course of three or four days.”
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Why Scottie Scheffler may be partially to blame for players collapsing while leading
There is perhaps an argument to be made that Scottie Scheffler is partially responsible for some of the collapses this season.
As Kisner notes, the mentality changes when a player is in the lead and looking to capitalise. The only problem is that Scheffler has ensured that so many players on the PGA Tour have not got that experience in the last couple of years.
Throughout the 2024 and 2025 seasons, most players only had the option to try and make as many birdies as possible to stand any chance of closing the gap to the world number one.
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But playing with the lead requires a different skillset. The likes of Lowry, Aberg, and Berger are not prolific winners. They have one PGA Tour victory – should you discount the Zurich Classic – between them since the end of the 2022 season.
Obviously, there are much bigger factors. But it perhaps does not get spoken enough about how Scheffler’s dominance has probably impacted so many of those with world-class potential.
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