What a difference a year can make.<\/p>\n
Following his T-33 finish at last year\u2019s Korn Ferry Tour Championship, Mitchell Meissner hopped in his rental car and drove two hours from French Lick, Indiana, to Indianapolis. It was there that he met with a wrist surgeon, and five days later he was undergoing a second procedure on his right wrist in three years.<\/p>\n
Now, he\u2019s on the cusp of earning his first PGA Tour card, as he enters this week\u2019s KFT playoff finale at Pete Dye Golf Course ranked No. 21 in points, just one spot out of the graduation cutoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to have a lot of gratitude being in the position that I am,\u201d Meissner said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Meissner, whose younger brother, Mac, competes on the PGA Tour, wasn\u2019t always planning on a career in professional golf. Plagued by the putting yips while in college at Rice, he spent the fall of his senior year lining up a consulting job with Accenture in Dallas. But that winter, he tried one last putting experiment \u2013 the righty grabbed a left-handed putter and the putts began dropping \u2013 and the decision reignited his game. He\u2019s putted from the opposite side ever since.<\/p>\n
Meissner\u2019s pro breakthrough came on PGA Tour Latinoamerica in 2022, as he finished second three times to help lock up his KFT card. Later that year, however, Meissner was playing a boxing game at a bar when one punch ruptured his ECU tendon, requiring surgery.<\/p>\n
After his second wrist operation last year, Meissner knew not to rush back like he did the first time. But he also couldn\u2019t afford to wait too long. His mid-October surgery was the same procedure as Jordan Spieth, who was out from September to February.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re on the PGA Tour in his position, you are probably in a position where you can wait a little longer,\u201d Meissner said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re on the Korn Ferry Tour and not getting paid when you\u2019re not playing, you have to rush back a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that Meissner didn\u2019t expedite things smartly. After his surgery, his mom drove him back home to San Antonio. They made a pit stop in Kansas City to watch his sister perform in a ballet rendition of Alice in Wonderland; with Meissner on pain killers, one could imagine the experience. A week later, he couldn\u2019t fit his casted arm in his suit jacket for his cousin\u2019s wedding, where he was required to read a passage during the ceremony.<\/p>\n
By December, Meissner was hitting golf shots, and when the KFT season started in the Bahamas in January, Meissner teed it up and finished T-39. He followed with three straight finishes of T-11 or better to build a nice, early cushion in the standings.<\/p>\n
In July, Meissner was among the KFT pros to pledge money for every birdie made to victims of the devastating flooding in Kerrville, Texas. Meissner grew up attending and working at Laity Lodge, a Christian camp less than an hour from Camp Mystic, where 27 campers and counselors died in the flooding. While tying for ninth at the NV5 Invitational, his last tournament of the pledge, Meissner birdied the last hole to end the week with 25 birdies and an eagle (27 shots gained). The event ended on July 27 as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was pretty poetic,\u201d said Meissner, who still wears a green ribbon on his hat to honor the lives lost. \u201cThat was one of the first times where something so worldly and very tragic happened that really affected me. I was really devastated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meissner hasn\u2019t finished better than T-22 since that tournament, missing three of six cuts in the process. He\u2019s had to lean on the putter more as his usually elite ball-striking and distance control has waned.<\/p>\n
While he\u2019s slipped from No. 11 in points to begin August to now just outside the bubble, Meissner will also lean on his faith.<\/p>\n
If he\u2019s supposed to be on the PGA Tour in 2026, he will be.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019ll be grateful no matter the outcome on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What a difference a year can make. Following his T-33 finish at last year\u2019s Korn Ferry Tour Championship,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-199205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}