2022 Presidents Cup: Does Kevin Kisner Deserve A Spot?

This time next week U.S. Presidents Cup Captain Davis Love III will inform the world of his final six selections for this year’s American team.

Six players who are yet to be named will receive the call from Captain Love III over the next week letting them know they have been named official ‘Captain’s Picks’ and will indeed be on the plane to North Carolina in just under three weeks’ time.

Whoever Captain Davis Love III decides to bring with him to this year’s Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, will join the U.S. team’s six automatic qualifiers.

All of Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, Justin Thomas, and Tony Finau earned enough points throughout the qualification period to guarantee themselves a spot on the team.

Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Max Homa, and Cameron Young have all presumably done enough to warrant one of Captain Love’s picks. Assuming the American Captain plans on bringing the aforementioned four with him to North Carolina that would leave just two spots on the team up for grabs.

Players like Billy Horschel, Tom Hoge, J.T. Poston, and Kevin Kisner were the next highest points earners during the qualification process.

If Davis Love III opted to look further down the list he could potentially give names like Scott Stallings, Russell Henley, Brian Harman, Aaron Wise, Keegan Bradley, and potentially even Daniel Berger, some serious consideration as well.

Is Kevin Kisner already in the U.S. Captain’s Presidents Cup plans?

Captain Love III was notably impressed with Kevin Kisner earlier in the year after the 38-year-old stood out at this year’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play once again while en route to yet another championship match appearance.

“I would love to have him on the team, for sure,” Love told Golf Channel back in March.

"“We do put stock in this tournament. Like [Scottie] Scheffler last year showed us a lot knocking off big-name guys.”"

Fast forward a handful of months and now Twitter is speculating that Kevin Kisner may have already been informed by the U.S. Captain that he will in fact be a part of this year’s team.

The four-time PGA Tour winner has been bypassed by each of the last three Ryder Cup Captains including last year when a real argument could have been made that he deserved a spot on the U.S. team that took down the Europeans at Whistling Straits. 

Kevin Kisner did receive the Presidents Cup call-up the last time the Americans played on home soil back in 2017, however. Kisner held an impressive 2-0-2 record at Liberty National during his Presidents Cup debut.

There is no denying Kevin Kisner’s immensely impressive career match play record and the fact that he may have already cemented his place on the U.S. team if rumors prove to be true. But after a mixed year does Kisner really deserve a spot on the 2022 Presidents Cup team?

Is Kevin Kisner deserving of a spot on the U.S. team?

Kevin Kisner is coming off a season that was full of inconsistent performances and mixed results.

The highlights included three top 5 finishes at the Sony Open (T-3rd), Players Championship (4th), and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play (2nd) respectively. He also had finishes of T-6th at the Travelers Championship, T-21st at the Open Championship, and a T-20th at the FedEx St. Jude Championship this season.

Conversely, however, the University of Georgia grad missed ten cuts on the PGA Tour this season and while his short game stats remained solid, all three of his off-the-tee, tee-to-green, and approach ranks were 137th or worse on Tour this season.

Kisner has also had mixed results at Quail Hollow throughout his career, on the one hand, he has finishes of 6th (2014 Wells Fargo Championship) and 7th (2017 PGA Championship), and on the other, he has missed the cut on three different occasions and recorded a 38th place finish (2015 Wells Fargo Championship) in four starts.

The 38-year-old’s impressive 22-7-2 head-to-head match play record may be enough to warrant his inclusion in this year’s team, but based on Kisner’s overall play this season and mixed results at Quail Hollow one could certainly argue that there may be a more deserving candidate worthy of a call from Captain Davis Love III.