Kramer Hickok Finds A Little More Fame After 63 at Travelers
Until Thursday’s 63 at the Travelers Championship, Kramer Hickok’s 53 seconds of fame came after moving out of Jordan Spieth’s house. Hickok had just won the DAP Championship on the Web.com Tour in 2018 and had been Spieth’s roommate — at Spieth’s invitation — when Hickok began following his professional ambitions after graduating from the University of Texas in 2015.
Hickok and Spieth have been friends since 2011 when both entered Texas as freshmen and golf teammates. Speith left school the following year and Hickok stayed until graduation. When Hickok turned pro, Spieth asked if he wanted to live in Spieth’s house.
“It was either that or I was going to live with my mom and dad,” said Hickok, who like Spieth, is from Dallas. The Web.com Tour tweeted a video after Hickok’s victory. You can see it here.
Unfortunately for Hickok, his career trajectory hasn’t been as steep as his former roommate. He was the Mackenzie Tour Order of Merit winner in 2017 with two victories and three runner-up finishes. After his Web.com Tour victory, Hickok made the PGA Tour the following year and has just managed to keep his card, once in the Web.com Tour Finals and last season by virtue of the fact that no one lost his playing privileges because of the pandemic.
Entering this week's Travelers Championship, Kramer Hickok had missed 10 of 19 cuts on the PGA Tour this season.
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This season, Hickok has missed more cuts (10) than he’s made (nine) and is 139th on the FedEx Cup points list. Suffice it to say, he needs a good week and his 7-under 63 at TPC River Highlands was a good start.
“I got off to like the worst warmup session of the year this morning and was just hitting it everywhere, and so I really changed my strategy,” said the 29-year-old Hickok. “I was just trying to play a little bit more conservative, hit greens, and once the putts started to fall, I just knew it really freed me up.
“I don't know if it's a mentality, you just take a lot weight off your shoulders and you just go and simplify things. That's what I did. I just said, you know what? I got my C game, but just by recognizing that I had my C game I was able to play to an A level today. And certainly 7-under is my A game.”