Sanderson Farms Championship
Sanderson Farms leader desperate for a win—but first, he's got NFL fantasy football lineup to figure out
Keith Mitchell reacts to his putt on the 17th green during the third round of the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Justin Casterline
It seemed almost like an answer formulated by Keith Mitchell’s own defense mechanism. It was funny nonetheless.
Coming off a third-round-best 65 that put him one shot into the lead in the Sanderson Farms Championship, Mitchell did his post-round Golf Channel interview and was asked how he might handle the pressure in trying to earn his second PGA Tour win. It was noted that he had blown a fourth-round chance earlier this season in the Valspar Championship.
Mitchell smiled and immediately endeared himself any football fan watching.
“I guess I need to set my fantasy football lineup. I haven’t done that yet,” Mitchell, 32, said, before going deeper. “I picked some guys off the waiver wire, and I’ve got to get it in before I tee off tomorrow. If I can do that, and I’m actually going to hit a few balls just to groove it because it felt good. Normal routine tomorrow.”
Mitchell also was getting updates from “Buddy Bobby” in the gallery on how Georgia was doing—the Bulldogs routed Auburn 31-13—and, if anything, maybe all the distractions are helping. He could use more Sunday, because Mitchell bluntly admits that he has sometimes not handled his Sunday opportunities well.
“I would say tomorrow is a completely new day. It's Sunday. Last group. Been there before and failed a bunch on Sundays in the last group or even close,” he said. “I'm hoping I can learn from those mistakes, learn from when I get those feels—it’s like what I did wrong then and not to let them happen again.
“… I would like to think I could have won more than once with my game and I haven't because I've succumbed to the pressure and tried to force things and did things out of my control and tried to really just win. You can't do that. You never know what's going to happen with the guys around you.”
The scar tissue for Mitchell, whose lone win in 184 starts came in the 2019 Honda Classic, was thickened in March when he followed a third-round 66 with a 77 that dropped him into T-17.
Again being extremely candid, Mitchell said, “I hit probably the worse two shots of the day on the first to holes and was not able to bounce back from those feelings of fear or anxiety trying to make sure I get it in the fairway or on the green. Valspar is a tough golf course, and it bit me that day. I felt like I was doing everything physically as best I could and, mentally, I was a train wreck after the first two holes.
“Learning from that is really all I can do. Only won once and trying to close the door a second time, which has been clearly very difficult for me.”
With a win, Mitchell could move up 20 places in the FedEx Cup Fall standings to 52nd and be second on that list behind Mackenzie Hughes. That’s big, because the 51st through 60 finishers after the fall automatically qualify for two signature events in 2025—AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Genesis Invitational.
Mitchell is most closely pursued by a player with a larger monkey on his back. Former junior golf and college star Beau Hossler, standing at 19 under after he opened the tournament shooting 64-65, headed into his 200th tour start this week without a victory. Still only 29, he has 16 top-10 finishes and three runners-up—along with earning more than $10 million—but has not fulfilled the promise he showed when the Southern California native got into contention during the weekend of the 2012 U.S. Open at The Olympic Club.
With only two top-10 finishes in 2024, Hossler failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs and currently stands 87th in the fall standings. A win would get him into the top 60, and a solo second moves him to 66th.