{"id":7396,"date":"2015-11-20T09:03:59","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T17:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/kisner-leads-at-sea-island-loves-end-even\/"},"modified":"2015-11-20T09:03:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T17:03:59","slug":"kisner-leads-at-sea-island-loves-end-even","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/kisner-leads-at-sea-island-loves-end-even\/","title":{"rendered":"Kisner leads at Sea Island; Loves end even"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. <\/strong>\u2014 Davis Love III and Davis Love IV did everything together Thursday at Sea Island.<\/p>\n

They have the same pre-shot routine, a full practice swing before setting up over the ball. Both hit a 3-wood off the tee and made birdie on the opening hole. Both wound up with an even-par 70 on the Seaside Course. And both have a lot of work to make up ground on Kevin Kisner.<\/p>\n

Kisner hit 3-wood to about 25 feet on the fringe and made eagle on his penultimate hole on the Plantation Course for a 7-under 65, giving him a one-shot lead based on par after the first round of the RSM Classic.<\/p>\n

Jeff Overton, David Hearn and Tom Hoge each had a 6-under 64 on the Seaside Course.<\/p>\n

The biggest crowd \u2014 which wasn\u2019t much on a day when storms threatened but never arrived \u2014 filled the bleachers behind the first tee to see some familiar faces.<\/p>\n

Love, the 21-time winner on the PGA Tour, has lived at Sea Island since he was 13. They saw his son, known as Dru, go from a toddler with a plastic club to a 6-foot-5 junior at Alabama who earned a spot in the RSM Classic through a qualifier for the final exemption.<\/p>\n

Nerves?<\/p>\n

Those belonged mainly to dad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little flustered,\u201d Love said. \u201cI was running late and nervous for him, and then he hit it right down the middle and hit it stiff and made birdie. And I stopped worrying about him and started worrying about me a little more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither made many birdies on a soft, calm and cloudy day that was ideal for low scoring \u2014 110 players in the 156-man field broke par. Love\u2019s round went the wrong direction with a poor tee shot that led to double bogey on the 13th hole. Dru Love caught his dad with a big tee shot and a two-putt birdie on the par-5 15th. On the final hole, Love had a 10-foot birdie putt to finish 1 under and just missed it.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t a father-and-son competition \u2014 at least not to the father.<\/p>\n

Asked his goal for Friday, Dru Love smiled and said, \u201cBeat my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t beat him today,\u201d the son said. \u201cObviously, my goal is to make the cut. I\u2019ve got that in the back of my head. I\u2019ll try to be more patient. After I birdied the first hole, my expectations were a little high. I\u2019ve played this course a lot and I\u2019ve played it well. So I think I thought I could play better than I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making it easier for Dru Love was having Justin Thomas along for the ride. Thomas, who missed two short birdie putts at the end and had to settle for a 67, played two years with him at Alabama, and he made it feel like an old college match, even telling Dru Love, \u201cNice save, Bigfoot,\u201d after a nifty up-and-down on the 16th.<\/p>\n

Dru Love has a size 13 shoe and has been called that since his freshman year at Alabama.<\/p>\n

Kisner had done everything but win this year. He has lost in a playoff three times \u2014 to Jim Furyk at Hilton Head, to Rickie Fowler at The Players Championship and in a four-man playoff at The Greenbrier Classic \u2014 and he was runner-up at the HSBC Champions in Shanghai two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t been disappointed in any stretch of golf coming down the stretch to have a chance. I always rate myself on that,\u201d Kisner said. \u201cI\u2019ve just gotten beaten a few times, so hopefully I\u2019ll have a chance coming down with a couple-shot lead on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is rare for fathers and sons to play together on the PGA Tour. Craig Stadler and son Kevin played in the 2014 Masters. Jay Haas has played numerous times with son Bill, a six-time tour winner. Jack Nicklaus played his final full season in 2000 when son Gary earned his tour card.<\/p>\n

Love is curious to see if his son can develop into a PGA Tour player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that he\u2019s another one of these kids that come out here and is chasing me off,\u201d Love said. \u201cI hit a really good drive at 15 and I think Dru was 20 (yards) by me and Justin was 40 by me. I was like, \u2018Oh, they\u2019re going to run me off eventually.\u2019 It\u2019s fun to watch Dru play. … I was proud of him. Heck of a first day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith everything going on around our family and him getting in this tournament and all the attention, I thought he handled it really well and played a good round of golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dru Love conceded to having a few nerves, too, though it helped to be with Thomas, and to know \u201cjust about everyone in the stands behind us everyone in fairway.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it helped to have his father along for the ride.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about normal stuff, mostly about what we\u2019re going to have for lunch and dinner,\u201d Dru Love said. \u201cHe\u2019s good at leaving me alone when I need to be left alone. He tried to treat me like he would anyone else out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. \u2014 Davis Love III and Davis Love IV did everything together Thursday at Sea Island. They have the same pre-shot routine, a full practice swing before setting up over the ball. Both hit a 3-wood off the tee and made birdie on the opening hole. Both wound up with an even-par […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7396"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}