When looking back on the goals he hasn’t yet accomplished in 2024, there’s one in particular that stands out for Chris Kirk. He hasn’t yet broken 80. Left-handed.
He’s come close, shooting 80 on the number with a birdie on the 18th hole at Athens Country Club. The 39-year-old PGA Tour veteran plays up a tee because his distance isn’t quite as good from the other side, but the most interesting question isn’t how he’s playing lefty, but why.
As in, why does the 44th-ranked player in the world, who earned his sixth career PGA Tour win this year at The Sentry, and who is returning this week to the RSM Classic, where he claimed his second career victory, teeing up from the other side? Why does he take it seriously enough that he had Callaway make him a set of lefty clubs (yes, he uses game-improvement irons)?
As it turns out, it’s for his family as much as it is for him.
“My kids had a lot to do with it,” Kirk said Tuesday during a pre-tournament press conference at Sea Island Golf Club. “I’ve always done it a little bit … then the last few years has been more, because it’s way more fun for me to play with my kids when I play left-handed. They like it better.”
To hear Kirk tell it, when his sons (ages 12, 10 and 7) watch him play right-handed, it all seems a little unattainable. And for Kirk himself, he has trouble treating any round—even a fun one with his kids—as separate from his actual job.
“So when I’m doing that and my head goes into a little bit of like a workspace when they hit like three tops in a row and are goofing off trying to find a turtle in the pond,” Kirk said, “you tend to be more like, ‘all right, let’s go, let’s go.'”
“But when I’m playing left-handed,” he continued, “I don’t care. It’s just purely quality time with my children, so there’s no … the work and professional element has been removed. So it becomes like pure recreation with my kids and it’s fantastic.”
Kirk keeps his left-handed play mostly to the offseason; he estimates that he has only played four or five rounds this year, which is less than normal. Still, his competitive drive doesn’t let him completely disengage from his goal-oriented mindset, as evidenced by the drive to break 80.
“I’m keeping score,” he said with a grin, “you better believe that.”
Kirk’s left-handed career began roughly when he first turned pro in 2007, and he and his friends on Sea Island would go out to have fun—yelling in each other’s backswings, and carding scores well north of 100. Then he moved away from Sea Island and didn’t play lefty for about a decade, before resuming because of his kids. He’s become significantly better over time, thanks in part to the specially made Callaway clubs, and now considers himself a solid chipper and putter.
Hitting solid irons remains the toughest part of the challenge, and Kirk said he can now fully relate to recreational golfers in the sense that he never expects to flush an approach shot, and in the few instances when he does, it flies well over the green. But he can still hit a drive more than 250 yards, and the sheer amount of knowledge he’s accrued over a lifetime of playing has helped him in the margins.
The best round of his life came this offseason at Athens C.C., playing with his oldest sons, Sawyer and Foster. Sawyer made an up and down on the last hole to break 100 for the first time, and while Kirk couldn’t quite break 80, the fact that he birdied the last hole left him with a good taste in his mouth.
“We were pumped,” he said.
Most golfers, when they come close to a goal but can’t quite reach it can easily remember a few shots that would have changed everything. Not so for Kirk, who, despite chasing a number, is still casual enough that he retains a degree of blissful ignorance.
“Thankfully, my left-handed rounds are really forgettable,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a lot of shots that I would like to have back, but I don’t remember a whole lot.”
Fun, casual, and ultimately low-stakes—just the way Kirk wants to play when he’s not really playing.
Main Image: Ben Jared/PGA Tour
