These are the strokes this PGA Tour pro would give you in a match

Kevin Kisner is playing four rounds this week at East Lake Golf Club’s 7,346-yard, par-70 golf course. The tees are from the tips during the Tour Championship. The greens are genuine. The pins are problematic. The rough is rough. 

He’d give the slightly-better-than average player, a 12 handicap, slightly worse than his average score on the PGA Tour this year (70) over those four rounds in a match.

(Would you take it?) 

In a video posted to the PGA Tour’s Twitter account this week, Kisner was asked how many strokes he’d spot the 12 handicap at the start of a 72-hole tournament “to make it fair.” He thought about it for 2 seconds. 

“Sixty-eight,” he said with the straightest of faces. 

He explained his number in four seconds. 

“Four times 12 is 48, and if I’m a plus-four, that’s 20 more,” he said. “That’s 68.”   

Earlier this year, Kisner did take on four non-pros from the tips. Sort of. Barstool’s Fore Play squad played as a four-man scramble against Kisner at Pinehurst No. 2 for charity. Fore Play won on the 18th hole. 

Also earlier this year, Lou Stagner, part of data-driven DECADE Golf, tweeted that the average Tour pro had a handicap index of +5.4 between 2016 and this year. Tiger Woods’ peak index, Stagner also reported, was +9.3 in 2008. 

Kisner also quickly explained how he was able to quickly figure out the strokes. 

“It’s all I do all day for a job,” he said. “Walk from my yardage sprinkler and do math. Pretty good at it.” 

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Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

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