Kevin Kisner still having fun despite 76 Saturday

Kevin Kisner didn’t have the day he was looking for Saturday at the Masters, but he was still able to crack a smile on the 18th hole.

He and playing partner Justin Thomas struggled in the wind, so they made a wager after both came up short on the final green and had birdie putts in excess of 50 feet. Thomas, putting first, lagged to two feet and tapped in for par.

“We had a little side bet on making that putt and I left it short, so we were laughing about that,” Kisner said after signing his scorecard for 4-over 76.

Kisner made his par on No. 18, but little else went right on the incoming nine.

On the par-5 13th, his second shot from 226 yards got caught in the wind, hit a rock in the tributary of Rae’s Creek and bounced back into the fairway. He wound up making par.

“I thought it was blowing off the right, and it just hung down the creek and hit the rocks down in there and came back out,” he said. “But then you’re not in a great position to that pin either, because you can’t go past that pin, so I was pretty much playing for par from there.”

Kisner three-putted the 15th for bogey, then missed the green at No. 16. He chunked it into the bunker but got it up and down for bogey.

“It was a hell of a four,” he said.

Kisner got off to a fast start with birdies at Nos. 3 and 6 that put him 2-under for the day. Then the wind picked up, and he bogeyed the next three holes.

“It felt easy for a minute and then I woke up,” Kisner said. “I mean, I don’t even know if I played poorly, to tell you the truth. I hit the ball fine, I putted fine. I mean, 4-over is not horrible in those conditions.”

The Masters rookie said Saturday wasn’t a day for learning much about the course and its subtleties.

“Yeah, you go home and have a beer and sit on the couch and laugh at everybody else,” he said. “That’s my plan. Hopefully we’ll play the golf course how it’s supposed to be played without much wind (Sunday).”