Courage Award Winner Chris Kirk Opens Up About His Journey To Sobriety

Georgia alum Chris Kirk picked up four PGA Tour victories between 2011-2015 but didn’t win another event on golf’s top circuit until this past February’s Honda Classic.

In May of 2019, the golfer, who was once ranked as high as 16^th in the world, announced he was taking an indefinite leave of absence from the game to seek help for depression and alcoholism. Six months later, with a new lease on life, Captain Kirk was back beaming balls from tee-to-green at the Mayakoba Classic where he finished T33. While sobriety had put him on the right path, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing on the golf course from the get go and he went on to miss the cut in his next five tournaments before Covid-19 paused all tour action. The following season Kirk re-found his form and cobbled together four top 10s including a runner-up finish at the Sony Open. Two years later he ended a 2,836-day drought when he beat Eric Cole in a playoff at The Classic at PGA National.

Kirk is a fan favorite and his path to sobriety and comeback story resonated with golf galleries, prompting many to reach out to him on social media and share their personal struggles. He has received tons of message and he’s tried his best to respond to every single one. When he heard this afternoon that he had won the tour’s 2023 Courage Award, he was both humbled and surprised.

“I mostly feel very shocked that I received this award. I had no idea it was coming. It’s an incredible honor. I mostly just feel very thankful and very blessed to be where I am today and I’m very thankful for all the people who have helped me along the way. My hope now is just that there are people out there who can hear my story and see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel if they are in a bad place and need to get some help,” Kirk said.

The Courage Award includes a contribution of $25,000 by the PGA Tour to a charity of the award recipient’s choice. Middle market audit, tax, and consulting firm RSM, the title sponsor of this week’s RSM Classic at St. Simon’s Island, whose logo you can also find on Kirk’s hat, has decided to match the contribution. Sobriety has paid major dividends for Kirk both on and off the course. He’s much happier and feels more present and in the moment in tournament play and also in his personal life.

“I got caught in a trap years ago where I was on the road a lot by myself, missing my family and dealing with it in really pretty terrible ways. I feel like I’m able to do as good of a job as possible of just being where my feet are—if I’m at a golf tournament I give it everything I’ve got. And when I’m home give everything I’ve got to being a husband and a father and focusing on what’s in front of me and trying to do the best that I can,” he said.

Confronting His Demons

It was five years ago when Chris Kirk came to the realization that he wasn’t just someone who enjoyed sipping on bourbon, but that he had a serious drinking problem. He tried to out wrestle his demons on his own for six or seven months but he failed pretty miserably, unable to stop himself from slipping out of control. That’s when he knew he had to take this very seriously and that’s when he decided to take a break from golf to get better.

During the initial stages, as he worked through a 12-step program, sought guidance from a psychiatrist, and grappled with breaking free from his physical dependency on alcohol, Chris Kirk experienced a sense of inner turmoil. He felt terrible and harbored feelings of resentment. Imagining a life without alcohol seemed daunting. He attributed his dependence to the grind of professional golf, going so far as contemplating giving up on the game for good.

“The first few months that I was not playing I had this feeling that the pressure of professional golf and the time it required me to be away from my family felt like that was what made me an alcoholic—that’s what did it to me. But, that’s certainly not true. It was a place I would have ended up no matter what,” Kirk said.

He knew alcohol was destroying his life but he was so dependent on it, he couldn’t picture himself possibly being happy without being able to reach for a bottle.

“Thank God that couldn’t be further from the truth. I still laugh now when I go to a party or social setting and I am a thousand times more comfortable than I ever was when I drank just because of that cloud that was around me. When I was drinking, if I drank an appropriate amount, that annoyed me because it was never as much as I wanted and if I drank as much as I wanted, I couldn’t be in public. I was always trying to find a balance and failing miserably at it,” Kirk said.

Five years removed from hitting rock bottom, Kirk deeply appreciates the progress he’s made along his sobriety path. Since returning to the tour, one change he’s made to his old routine is choosing to rent a house and share it with fellow tour players instead of staying alone in hotel rooms. Initially, this decision served two purposes: providing peace of mind for his wife and helping him overcome haunting memories of isolation linked to his past struggles with alcohol. Nowadays, it’s just something that is ‘night-and-day’ more fun.

“As the years have gone on, it’s just been a really great environment—having the camaraderie of some of my closest friends. From a quality-of-life perspective, you finish playing and go back and sit on a bed at a hotel versus going back to the house and throwing a football with someone out in the yard, playing cards, or rolling dice. Everybody is just hooting and hollering and enjoying our time together” Kirk explained.

Asked for advice for people facing similar demons, Kirk recommends finding a support group where there will be people that are willing and ready to help:

“You’re going to see people who may have a year of sobriety, maybe they’ve got five or ten but they’re happy and its infectious. You start to see a little glimmer of hope—if it worked for all these people then maybe it can work for me.”