Kramer Hickok’s painfully narrow defeat

The natural reaction when a player like Kramer Hickok loses his chance at a breakthrough victory is a human one: He’ll get ‘em next time.

Perhaps. But on the PGA Tour, the reality is often otherwise.

More from Pro Golf Now

• Golf Rumors: LIV set to sign Masters Champion in stunning deal
• Fantasy Golf: Grant Thornton Invitational DFS Player Selections
• Brutal return leaves Will Zalatoris looking towards 2024
• Stars You Know at World Champions Cup Starts Thursday at Concession
• Fantasy Golf: An Early Look at the 2024 Masters Tournament

Hickok, a six-year pro out of the University of Texas, lost an eight-hole playoff to Harris English at the Travelers Sunday at TPC River Highlands. The victory, sealed when English sank a birdie putt on that eighth playoff hole, was his second of the 2021 season and the fourth of his career.

As the runner-up, Hickok is expected to take home around $700,000 when all the checks are written. That will be more money than he has won in any full season on Tour.

In 19 previous starts this season, he had just one top 10 finish, that being a tie for eighth in Bermuda back in November. That success was more than offset by 10 missed cuts. Hickok entered the Travelers ranked 111th in Strokes Gained Off The Tee, 145th in Strokes Gained Approaching the Green and 171st in Strokes Gained Putting.

The key to understanding the PGA Tour is that old “On Any Given Week” thing. At TPC River Highlands, Hickok ranked fifth in Strokes Gained Off The Tee, 57th in Strokes Gained Approaching the Green and second in Strokes Gained Putting. It was an utterly out-of-character performance, yet it happened. “On Any Given Week…”

Over the course of a full season, however, reality tends to set in. After all, literally hundreds of the world’s best golfers tee it up in at least one Tour event each season. More than 200 are regulars, playing enough rounds for the Tour to maintain a full statistical profile on their play.

Yet during the last full Tour season – 2018-19 – only 40 individuals won the 47 contested single events. And the great bulk of those champions came from the Tour’s playing royalty. Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Bryson DeChambeau, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar combined to win more than a third of those 2018-19 events.

https://progolfnow.com/2021/06/23/2021-travelers-championship-pro-golf-now-staff-picks-win/

Week after week, that doesn’t leave much breathing space for the sport’s non-bluebloods…guys like Hickok.

There is, obviously, no shame in finishing second, particularly in an eight-hole playoff. Beyond that, there are tangible benefits. In addition to that $700,000 check, Hickok jumped about 70 positions in the FedEx Cup standings, to 69th place. His runner-up finish guarantees him a spot among the 125 who advance to the Tour Championship series, and gives him a plausible chance to be among the 70 making it beyond the first cut.

Even if he does nothing else this season, that alone will mean tens of thousands of additional dollars in winnings.

But there is also no denying that Hickok’s inability to close out English on any of those eight playoff holes also cost him dearly.

• He does not qualify for the invitation to next April’s Masters that would have come his way with a win.
• He does not gain automatic entry into either the Players Championship next March or the PGA Championship next May.
• He does not pick up the two-year exemption into regular PGA Tour events that goes to all tournament winners. Instead, Hickok must continue to fight, shoot or cajole his way into events on a week-by-week basis.
• Finally and most importantly, there is the matter of simply winning as its own reward.

On Tour, the problem is that for the great mass of pack players – guys like Hickok — opportunities to win are ephemeral. They arise out of nowhere and vanish just as quickly. During this calendar year, Hickok is the seventh Tour player to finish as a runner-up while seeking his breakthrough Tour victory.

For the record, the previous half dozen were: Henrik Norlander (Farmers), Kyoung-Hoon Lee (Waste Management), Maverick McNealy (ATT), Matt Hagy (Honda), Harold Varner III (RBC Heritage) and Abraham Ancer (Wells-Fargo).

Since their runner-up finishes, the composite record for those six players – all more renowned than Hickok – amounts to 50 starts, but only five top 10s: a pair of fourths by Norlander, a fourth  at Hartford an a T8 by Ancer at the PGA and a T4 by McNealy at the RBC. Collectively they’ve had only three other top 20s.

Those successes are more than offset by 22 missed cuts.

It is pleasant to think that Hickok will rebound from his narrowest of defeats and achieve a life-altering victory sometime soon…perhaps as early as this week at the Rocket Mortgage.

But the data says don’t bet on it.