Memories of past losses help carry Keith Mitchell to Honda Classic win
Underdog Keith Mitchell holed a 15-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole at the Honda Classic on Sunday to beat Brooks Koepka and Rickie Fowler.
Keith Mitchell had a case of deja vu on the 72nd hole of the Honda Classic on Sunday.
Two years ago, the 27-year-old former Georgia Bulldog faced a 20-foot putt at the last hole of the season-ending event on the Web.com Tour. Make the putt and he would finish inside the top-25 on the money list and earn his PGA Tour card. Instead, Mitchell watched as the putt rolled by the hole, dropping him to 26th and missing out on the PGA Tour by one spot.
On Sunday at PGA National, Mitchell was looking at the same situation: a 15-footer for birdie on the last hole to earn his first PGA Tour win. This time, though, he made the putt. Mitchell finished the Honda Classic at nine-under after a final-round 67, a shot ahead of runners-up Brooks Koepka and Rickie Fowler.
It’s that disappointment Mitchell experienced two years ago that helped him this week. Mitchell is a journeyman, plying his trade on the mini-tours, the Latin American tour and the Web.com Tour before making it to the PGA Tour last year. His only win as a professional came at a mini-tour event in 2016. But Mitchell made himself think of all those missed chances he’s had while preparing for his final round of the Honda Classic, in particular that missed putt at Pumpkin Ridge in 2017.
“I think about that putt every day,” he said at his post-victory press conference on Sunday. “The feeling of missing out on an opportunity … the feeling of putting yourself in a position to win or to succeed, and not coming through … was something I’ve struggled with in the past. Because you want it so bad. When you think that way it’s never going to be a good outcome.”
“So this morning I tried to remind myself of a few times that I actually missed out and those feelings. Knowing that I didn’t want to have those feelings today. I wanted to overcome those and I wanted to see what it was like on the other side.”
It was easy to ignore Mitchell on the crowded leaderboard on Sunday, especially after he bogeyed the opening two holes. He managed to get back to even par for the round by the turn, and it was on the back-nine that he got hot. He holed a 17-footer for birdie at the 13th. His tee shot at the par-three 15th, the first hole of the daunting Bear Trap, settled four feet from the cup, the second-closest approach of the round. Suddenly Mitchell found himself in a tie for the lead with Koepka and Fowler.
A player like Mitchell isn’t expected to beat competition like that. After he took the lead following the second round on Friday, a friend sent him a newspaper article with the headline, “No Name is leading Honda.” Koepka is the fourth-ranked player in the world, Fowler ninth. Mitchell is ranked 162nd and had to watch as the two of them charged up the leaderboard.
At the 16th, Koepka hit his approach from 211 yards out of the rough to within 10 feet and converted the birdie. He then two-putted for birdie at the par-five 18th, being the first to post eight-under. Fowler, meanwhile, holed a 45-footer for birdie at the 17th, then got up and down from a greenside bunker at the last to join Koepka.
Mitchell found himself in a three-way tie as he came up 18th, and says he tried to concentrate on his job while the crowd got behind his two competitors. “Everybody’s cheering for Rickie because he’s such a great ambassador for the game, and everybody’s cheering for Brooks,” he said. “And I’m standing on the fairway on 18 when I see Rickie make another putt to go to eight. So I’m thinking if I make par here I’ve got a playoff with two of the best players in the world. Potentially Hall of Famers of all-time.”
“That’s a big thought for a guy that’s on his second year on tour who’s never won. I was able to execute, and that’s something I’ve been unable to do in the past.”
Mitchell laid up out of a fairway bunker, then hit his third shot to 15 feet. Now facing the most important putt of his life, he calmly rolled it in. “It’s the best putt I’ve ever hit under the circumstances, hands down,” he said. “Just to have it fall is too cool.”
That Mitchell had to rely on his putter to win is itself unexpected. He ranks 218th on the PGA Tour (out of 221 players) in strokes gained: putting. But the key putts he made on the last few holes was the difference is letting him prevail over Koepka and Fowler.
Mitchell might’ve been a “No Name” coming into this week, but he now knows he’ll have a job on the PGA Tour for the next two years. The Georgia native also gets an invitation to the Masters next month, as well as a spot in the Players Championship in two weeks. For that, he can thank the memory of a missed putt two years ago and his determination to avoid having to feel like that again.