Kragthorpe: Utah Championship winner Patton Kizzire makes himself memorable

Lehi

The well-meaning folks offering tributes to the Utah Championship winner during the awards presentation Sunday evening collectively needed several attempts to properly pronounce Patton Kizzire's name.

He hardly minded. What mattered to him was the promise of having his name engraved as the first entry on the Billy Casper Cup. The new, permanent trophy honors the legendary golf career of the Utahn who died in February. A friend of British Open winner Zach Johnson, Kizzire received another award to keep, describing it as "my Claret Jug."

The Web.com Tour's first visit to Thanksgiving Point after 16 years at Willow Creek Country Club will be remembered for some surprisingly low scores, considerable back-nine drama and a playoff that lasted two holes. All of those subjects involved the eventual champion — and that's Patton, not Peyton, Kuh-ZY-ur. Remember his name. This guy already was headed to the PGA Tour later this year as the Web.com Tour's leading money-winner through July, and now that he has experienced the feeling of winning a tournament at this level, he might get even better.

The 29-year-old golfer who grew up in Alabama and played at Auburn University was asking for a headache remedy as he walked into the clubhouse afterward, but soon declared himself "pretty relieved and excited."

That's what $117,000 will do for you. The winner's check brings his season total to nearly $400,000 — pretty good for a golfer who spent seven years chasing the minitours. Money aside, there's just something about winning tournaments that drives these players. He already had posted eight top-10 finishes as a Web.com Tour rookie, including a playoff loss in North Carolina, before coming to Utah.

This win took a lot of work, even after his second-round 62. The ending came via what he labeled "one of the toughest 3-footers I've ever had," his birdie on yet another tour of No. 18 to conclude the playoff. The buildup to that moment was quite an adventure.

Kizzire started the final round with a two-stroke lead over Sung Kang and suddenly found himself trailing by one shot after two holes. The wind was howling, his wedge shots were bouncing over the greens and Kizzire figured he was in for a tough day. Even after a chip-in birdie from behind the No. 3 green, he bogeyed the par-3 No. 4 to fall behind again.

The conditions turned calmer, and Kizzire took a four-stroke lead at the turn. He never made another bogey, yet Kang caught him, making five birdies. Kizzire ended up being lucky to make the playoff, as Kang barely missed a birdie try at No. 18 in regulation, leaving them tied at 19 under par. On the second playoff hole, Kizzire said, "Finally, after three attempts in a row, I hit the drive like I wanted to."

He covered the equivalent of about 375 yards on the 440-yard, dogleg-right No. 18, then stuck a wedge shot just left of the hole and completed a rewarding victory in a tournament he enjoyed.

Counting previous events at Riverside Country Club in Provo and Willow Creek, Kizzire is the Utah Championship's 24th winner. He's definitely the first champion to mention the fun of "fighting the crowds." Fans responded well to the move to Lehi, and Thanksgiving Point proved to be an outstanding venue — even if the players' lengthy walks between holes made for very long rounds. The scoring was lower than predicted by Mark Whetzel, the course's director of golf, who said, "I'm awed, No. 1, by how well they play."

Yet only two players shot better than 14 under, and Whetzel said that firming up and speeding up the course to PGA Tour standards offered some illustration of architect Johnny Miller's original vision. Patton Kizzire won't be coming back here in 2016, but Thanksgiving Point earned another shot as the tournament host.

kkragthorpe@sltrib.com

Twitter: @tribkurt