Kevin Kisner records his lowest round at Masters

There was only one shot Saturday that Kevin Kisner could complain about, and even that one was nearly perfect.

Kisner, the 34-year-old Aiken native, flew his second shot on hole No. 5 straight to the pin and in the hole, only to see it bounce out and roll back off the front of the green.

It resulted in his only bogey of the third round of the Masters Tournament, as he finished with a 3-under-par 69 to improve to even par at Augusta National.

“They only spot you, having your book, to that pin is to not hit it short,” Kisner said. “My ball went in the hole and came out and went short. Anywhere else I could have probably made an easy 4. But it’s part of the game man, just bad luck.”

Not much else went wrong for the University of Georgia alum.

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Kisner recorded back-to-back birdies at Nos. 2 and 3 and, after that misfortune, strung together seven consecutive pars.

He birdied both par 5s on the back to finish with his first round in the 60s at the Masters. His previous best was 72.

“Today was as solid as I’ve hit it all week,” Kisner said. “Only one bogey where I actually flew it in the hole and it came out and went off the green. It was really good.”

With rain forecasted for the day, Kisner felt fortunate that the wind and rain held off for most of his round.

“The most weird part of the day was right when we teed off, the second hole, it was blowing and raining,” Kisner said. “But it turned out to be nice.”

Kisner is tied for 21st, 14 shots off of Patrick Reed’s lead. As he sees it, though, there’s plenty left to accomplish.

“Always top 10s are great,” Kisner said. “We’ve got a lot of World Ranking points, a lot of Ryder Cup points, a lot of FedEx Cup points that we can gain by playing well here. So I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

A top-10 showing would be a drastic improvement on Kisner’s other two appearances at Augusta National, when he tied for 37th in 2016 and tied for 43rd last year.

The 2 under he shot on the second nine Saturday has him antsy to get out on the course Sunday. 

“I just have to build off those shots I hit, because I hit some really quality shots; coming in especially,” Kisner said. “I’m going to keep working on that and go shoot 5, 6, 7 (under) tomorrow and have a great weekend. Then go win next week (at the RBC Heritage).”