'Big Mike' makes most of viral moment

SAVANNAH, Ga. – In one sense “Big Mike” Visacki isn’t so big anymore.

Visacki, who will be one of 149 players teeing it up at the final stage of the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament starting Thursday at The Landings Club, is working out and eating better. He’s down around 25 pounds since March, when he Monday qualified into the Valspar Championship and broke down in tears while calling to tell his father.

A viral video of that moment introduced his story to fans, some of whom reached out via Venmo and other means to support the mini-tour grinder. Chief among his new benefactors is Justin Thomas, who wrote him a check to help him keep chasing the dream.

Which is why, in another sense, Visacki is bigger than ever.

As part of his preparation for final stage, which will determine the priority ranking for the start of the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour season, Visacki and Thomas played Michael Jordan’s exclusive Grove XXIII club last Friday. From Sarasota, Florida, where he lives, Visacki drove three hours to Hobe Sound, where upon piling out of the car he found himself 30 yards from Jordan himself.

Then he shot 5 under to clip Thomas by two.

“He had one bad hole, but he birdied the last four,” Visacki said of Thomas during an interview at The Landings, where his dad, Mike, Sr., will be his caddie for final stage. (Top 40 and ties are guaranteed entry into the first eight events of the upcoming Korn Ferry Tour season.)

“It’s not how you start,” he added. “It’s how you finish.”

Rickie Fowler joined them on the 12th hole. Mike, Sr., whose home in Yugoslavia was made of mud and hay, and who came to New York with his parents when he was 14, tagged along, too. He’s more of a soccer fan – he started playing golf at 42 and was taught by a Hungarian trapeze performer – but relished talking to Thomas’ father, also Mike, whom he calls, “A really great guy.”

Big Mike’s day with the stars was just the latest example of how much things have changed for him.

It also opened Thomas’ eyes.

“I was really impressed,” Thomas said from Mexico, where he’s playing the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. “He drives the ball really well, hits his irons really solid. You can tell he's the kind of guy to where if his wedges and chipping and putting are good, then he's got a chance to really have a good career, professional career.

“I'm obviously pulling for him,” Thomas continued. “I went through Q-School, I went through all that, it's very stressful and it's pressure-filled.”

Doing the work

After missing the cut at the Valspar and Charles Schwab Challenge, which he played on a sponsor’s exemption given by Schwab himself, Visacki went home and regrouped. His two PGA TOUR starts had made him semi-famous, but now he began to quietly remake himself with the cameras off.

In addition to his new private benefactors, he found an ally in GOLFTEC, which provides custom club-fitting and instruction nationwide and now sponsors him. Meanwhile, nudged by his swing coach and one of his new private backers, he got serious about his weight. He looks different now; you can see it in his face.

Just as importantly, he took his silver 2010 Honda Accord (211,000 miles) on a barnstorming tour that included state opens and other small tournaments, all funded by Thomas and others.

“In six or seven weeks I put on 6,500 miles,” Visacki said.

His itinerary was like that old Johnny Cash song, I’ve Been Everywhere: Sarasota, St. Louis, North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado.

The most significant moment: his victory at the Waterloo (Iowa) Open in July, worth $50,000. It was his biggest payday as a professional, and he texted Thomas the good news.

“I just wanted to say thanks for all he’d done, allowing me to chase state opens where before I wouldn’t have able to,” Visacki said. “He gave me the chance that led to my biggest win.”

Thomas, who calls Visacki a fighter, was delighted, telling him to keep going and use it as a stepping-stone.

“The hard part about this game is that things don't happen just because you think they should,” he said. Hard work and a cool backstory go only so far.

“Golf doesn't really care,” Thomas added. “Sports, that's not how it works. It might work out in the end if you do play well.”

Visacki continues to do his part. Regarding his other benefactors, he said, “They just looked me up and found me. Someone from Boston. A gentleman from Texas. I was at the golf course when I got a Venmo for 2,500 bucks; I didn’t even know who it was. I reached out on Venmo and said, ‘Do you mind if you send me your number? I want to get in contact with you.’

“We ended up talking,” he continued, “and he felt my story and he ended up sending me some more. It helped me get rid of my credit card debt.”

Someone else offered to pay his membership fees at the Founders Golf Club in Sarasota.

The Big Mike caravan was gaining passengers and picking up speed, and continues to do so today.

Seizing the moment

His barnstorming tour might not have meant quite so much had Visacki not made it through KFT Q-School’s perilous second stage two weeks ago at South Florida’s Plantation Preserve. Get through second stage and you’ve got a place to play; wash out and you’re back to the fringes.

On the bubble at second stage two years ago, Visacki lost his ball in a tree on his second-to-last hole and made double bogey, then missed a birdie putt on 18 to miss by one agonizing shot.

History threatened to repeat itself after Visacki shot a nervous 4-over front nine on the final day at Plantation Preserve. Tyler Beasley, a GOLFTEC instructor who coaches Visacki and was his caddie at first and second stage, got in his man’s ear on the long walk to the 10th tee.

“He basically wasn’t turning through the ball like he needs to,” said Beasley, a former long-drive competitor. “And there’d been a rain delay, and he doubled nine, but he was focused and resilient. It was a long walk to the back nine. We walked right by his car. We got to 10 and did a fist bump and I said, ‘You can do this. Let’s go play the best nine holes of our life.’”

Visacki eagled the 10th hole. He birdied 11 and 12. After three pars he birdied again at 16. He found the water on his second shot at the par-5 18th but got up and down from 160 yards, holing a putt from 12 feet to save a crucial par. It’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.

On another FaceTime call with his dad, he wasn’t sure if he’d done enough. When it became official that he had, on the number without a shot to spare, Visacki got a congratulatory call he won’t soon forget.

“It was so funny,” he said. “We were having a quick bite to eat before going home, and Tyler said, ‘Has J.T. reached out?’ I said, ‘No, not yet.’ And he called 30 seconds later, almost like he’d heard me. The first thing he said was, ‘You don’t like to make it easy on yourself, do you, bud?’ [Laughs] I was like, ‘No, I like to give people a show.’ [Laughs] You know, going 4 over on the front, 5 under on the back. It definitely made it interesting.

“It felt good, after what happened two years ago,” he continued. “This time it was the easiest putt I had had all day, right edge. I backed my caddie off from over-reading it, and poured it in. I feel like maybe it wasn’t my time back then, and now it is.”

He’s an overnight success, years in the making. Credit Beasley. (Visacki had been coached by his dad.) Credit his improved diet and stamina and mobility. The catalyst, though, was that viral video at the Valspar. Letting his guard down lifted him up in ways he couldn’t have predicted.

The old Honda is still around, but Visacki has bought himself another ride. It’s a 2019 Ford GT Mustang, low mileage. “I call it midnight blue,” he said. “I got a great deal on it.” The trunk easily fits his slim Sun Mountain carry bag. As for his bulkier staff bag, that might be tougher.

“I’m waiting on a bag from Titleist to come,” he said, “but they were a little backordered.”

A little backordered. Crisscrossing the country, playing just to cover expenses and for the chance to keep going, Visacki once could have said the same about his career. But after a wild eight months he’s on the verge of a full Korn Ferry Tour season and his best chance at achieving his dream: “Getting that PGA TOUR card so I can play with J.T. in final rounds,” he said.

He’ll have a lot of people pulling for him.