“That’s the way it goes sometimes, unfortunately.” In every golf tournament, there is a winner and someone left wondering what could have been. Just last week at the Travelers Championship, it was Tommy Fleetwood who walked away gutted.

This Sunday, at the Rocket Classic in Detroit, it was Chris Kirk’s turn to feel the sting.

He found himself in a three-man playoff with Max Greyserman and eventual champion Aldrich Potgieter. Kirk stood over a 9-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole with a chance to seal it.

He missed. Then, on the second playoff hole, he three-putted from inside 20 feet and was eliminated. The dream slipped away in two swings.

Still, like Jack Nicklaus once said, true pros show grace in defeat, and Kirk did just that. Moments after the playoff heartbreak, he faced the media with composure.

“Yeah, obviously just really disappointed right now,” he said moments after being eliminated. “But felt like I played great today. I’m happy with the way I played.

“It’s a shame that first playoff hole, hit just three perfect shots and misread that putt a little bit. That’s the way it goes sometimes, unfortunately.”

Kirk had played solid all week at Detroit GC. He opened with back-to-back 65s, then added a 68 on Saturday to stay in the mix.

On Sunday, he carded a 5-under 67 to finish at 22-under-par, joining Greyserman and Potgieter in a three-man playoff.

Potgieter, the 20-year-old South African, eventually won it on the fifth extra hole with an 18-foot birdie putt.

The win earned Potgieter $1.728 million and 500 FedEx Cup points. Kirk, who tied for second, took home $854,400, a solid payday, but not the one he wanted.

“You know, it’s such a fine line out here,” Kirk had said earlier in the week.

“All the players on this tour are so good that you miss a cut by one or two and you feel like it’s the end of the world… and you’re really not as far off as you think.”

This time, he didn’t miss the cut, but the feeling of falling short hit just as hard.

Before Detroit, the 40-year-old had missed six cuts in 16 starts and hadn’t posted a single top-10 finish this season. His putting, ranked 161st on Tour, has been a glaring weakness.

But this week, he gained over 3.50 strokes on the greens and looked like the Kirk of old.

He’ll tee it up at the John Deere Classic next week, hoping to turn heartbreak into momentum. For now, though, he’ll have to live with the one that got away.

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