Max Kennedy is in it to win it this week as he makes his PGA Tour debut at the $4 million Puerto Rico Open.
Kennedy earned the opportunity to tee it up by winning the General Hackler Championship last year with the University of Louisville. The Royal Dublin golfer has always had aspirations of earning a PGA Tour card and he believes he is good enough to fast track his dream with a surprise win when he begins on Thursday.
“To get the opportunity to play here is pretty cool and it’s a good opportunity to get something out of it also. I’m going there to try and win and I have as good a chance as anyone to do that,” says Kennedy after picking up some confidence following four weeks in South Africa on the HotelPlanner Tour and a spirited showing at his first Monday qualifier last week.
“If you don’t think you can win you are probably not going to win! You have to go over there believing you are going to win, the standard is obviously high but there is definitely a chance once you keep your mindset in the right place so that’s my goal.”
Cognizant Classic winner Joe Highsmith is the highest ranked player at Grand Reserve Golf Club at 59th in the world and Kennedy could have joined him at PGA National last week but a 68 in his first Monday qualifier wasn’t enough to earn one of four spots in the field.
It proved to be a massive learning curve for Kennedy who once again showed up well on a bigger stage.
“I played quite well, I’m playing really good golf and I am very confident of where my game is at. It was my first Monday qualifier, you can’t afford a mistake and I missed two short putts early in the round and it put me on the back foot but again I shot 68 and was happy with how I played but you have to play really exceptional to get through those things.”
The 23-year-old has shown that he is well able to compete at a higher level. Good performances at the LIV Promotions event in 2023 and at DP World Tour Q-School in November as an amateur prove that he is not afraid of the challenge, and after picking up his first paycheque as a professional with a top-20 finish in South Africa last month, he is full of confidence.
He knows that he will need to raise his game again to ensure he is in a position to get anything out of his week and these are challenges he has relished in his first few months as a pro.
“It’s fantastic, learned quite a lot over the last couple of months. It’s definitely a different standard, the level has got a little bit higher, not in terms of the winning scores but the people in the middle of the pack. You don’t get away with playing average to bad golf and making cuts, you have to play pretty well every week to compete and make a cut, it’s just learning how to compete every week and keep it consistent.
“I played quite well for the four weeks in South Africa but never got everything together, there was always some part of my game that was struggling and in professional golf you don’t get away with that. The last week was a good confidence builder to get something together and get a good finish out of it even though I could have scored a little bit better considering how well I played.”
It can be argued that the Irishman who counts Shane O’Grady (coach to Leona Maguire & Lauren Walsh) as his coach, hasn’t quite got the rub of the green despite some excellent performances on big stages, most notably missing out on a full DP World Tour card by one shot in November.
But Kennedy never lacks confidence or belief in himself and he is certain that his knack for impressing on the big occasion will eventually be rewarded.
“It comes in stages, it just builds and builds and then eventually you just show up in an event and it happens. You just have to keep at it and eventually it will fall once you keep the right mindset. I’m going to keep doing the exact same things and I can see my game getting better, the stats show that, if it keeps going that way it’s only a matter of time I just have to stay patient.”
Liam Nolan grabbed the headlines during the four weeks in South Africa with two top-4 finishes as he made hay on his invites to the HotelPlanner Tour.
It took Kennedy a few weeks to get going but he eventually arrested a run of three missed cuts on the spin with a top-20 at the NTT Data Pro-Am and having patience and an unwavering work ethic are the two big learnings he has taken with him.
“Patience is a big thing because sometimes you can be a lot closer than it feels so just staying patient and working on the things you have been trusting in is a big thing. It showed down in South Africa even though I missed three cuts in a row I did believe my game was in a good position and I didn’t change a whole lot fundamentally. It paid off in the last event and I built up some momentum going forward.
“Practicing on the weekend after missing a cut is key. The range was full on a Saturday afternoon when all the leaders had gone out with people grinding after missing a cut, you don’t really see that in amateur golf so that’s one thing that I learned is that most of the guys are willing to put in countless hours to improve so if you aren’t at that level you are in the wrong sport.”
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