Walk-on Matthew Kress, a midseason newcomer to the UF lineup, went unbeaten in his three match-play duels at the SEC Championships to help the Gators capture their first league title since 2011.
Kress Walking His Walk-on Talk
Friday, May 5, 2023 | Men's Golf, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The first time Florida coach J.C. Deacon saw Matthew Kress hit a golf ball in competition produced a moment both will never forget. And not in a good way.
Kress stepped up to the No. 1 tee box at Golden Ocala for his first round of fall season qualifying. The freshman walk-on from Saratoga, Calif., took his practice swings and a couple deep breaths before addressing the ball, then promptly yanked his first drive as a Gator dead left and into a row of pines.
"Literally, one of the worst shots I'd ever hit in my life," Kress said.
At that very instant, Deacon couldn't help but recall his initial reticence of taking on this west coast project, but masked those thoughts with a couple encouraging words directed toward his player, noting the ball had bounced off a tree and back into the fairway. JC Deacon
That's when he leaned over to UF assistant Dudley Hart with a whisper.
"My God, what have we done?" Deacon said. "This kid's got no chance."
One hundred and eight holes of robotic mechanics, very little touch, even less feel and six rounds of unimpressive scores later, Kress's first qualifying performance placed him at 13-over-par (and 37 strokes behind team leader Yuxin Lin).
No one would have blamed Deacon had he chose to file away his rookie as a bad decision. A mistake he would not make again. A lesson about trusting initial instincts. After all, it was Kress who first reached out with an interest of playing for the Gators. Deacon did his homework and saw nothing on Kress's junior or prep resume to suggest he could compete with the likes of Lin, Ricky Castillo, Fred Biondi and John DuBois, but the prospect was steadfast, passionate and, ultimately, convincing with his pitch and promise to be the hardest-working and most committed player in Deacon's program.
Deacon eventually relented, vowing to hold Kress to his word. That was two years ago.
Two weeks ago, Kress absolutely thrashed his match-play opponent from top-ranked Vanderbilt in the final round of the Southeastern Conference Championships at Sea Island. Kress was the first Gator to dispatch of his respective Commodores foe, then watched as his teammates took a 3-1-1 match victory that claimed Florida's first league title in 12 years.
"We don't win it without Matt Kress," Deacon said.
UF coach JC Deacon (left) congratulates Matthew Kressafter his match-play victory against Vanderbilt in the finals of the SEC Championships.
In two weeks, the No. 10 Gators will try to build on their conference conquest — and Deacon's first SEC title — when they head to NCAA Regionals at Eagle Eye Golf Club at Bath, Mich. UF will try to advance out of regional play and on to the NCAA Championships for the sixth time on Deacon's watch. The Gators have never reached the match-play format — and single-elimination quarterfinals — since the NCAA adopted match play in 2009.
"This team is a different. This team is more about playing for something a little bigger than ourselves," said Castillo, the senior and nation's 70th-ranked player. "We celebrated the SEC championship. It was great. Now, it's about the next challenge — regionals — and getting better every day."
Kress is a microcosm of that mindset.
HARDWOOD TO DOGWOOD
There's no mystery to where Kress got his work ethic. His father, David, started in the mailroom at Microsoft in 1987 and retired after three decades as senior business operations manager of worldwide enterprise marketing. David met his future wife during his time in Silicon Valley. Colette Kress is now executive vice president and CFO of Nvidia, one of the world's leaders in artificial intelligence, gaming and software.
"My parents are really high achievers in the business world," Kress said. "They made a name for themselves by working from the bottom to the top. They didn't talk a lot about that to me, but I watched and observed how they went about it. It taught me that if you're willing to work harder than most people, you'll rise. Sometimes it may happen slowly, but it'll happen."
For Kress and his older brother, David Jr., basketball and baseball were their sports of choice growing up, with an emphasis on the former. Matthew attended and played basketball at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, Calif., where he was a decent (not great) guard on a decent team. Golf, initially, was for weekend excursions with his dad and brother, but that all changed his freshman year when the Kress brothers made the varsity golf team. Matt decided that was his sport.
His passion, as it turned out.
Before Matthew Kress(right) was a full-time golfer, he was a basketball player at Bellarmine College Preparatory as a freshman.
Kress immersed himself in golf and found he loved the game, but his path — and goal of playing Division I — was not without roadblocks, including one very obvious one. His talent.
"I was like the 200th ranked golfer in California," Kress said.
And that was in 2020, which had some other significant drawbacks, especially for a golfer living in a lockdown state.
"He spent a long part of his time learning golf during COVID, but California had no tournaments," Colette Kress said. "We knew he wanted to play D-I golf and we told him we would support him as long as he gave his best effort, which he did. Honestly, though, I worried that his plan was not going to happen, given the environment. It was going to be tough."
Especially given that Kress wasn't exactly shooting for the bare minimum. There were plenty of colleges with golf teams in California, but Kress wanted more than just to check a tee box. Though he reached out to a handful of schools, Kress locked in on Oregon, Southern Methodist and, of course, Florida. He had the grades and test scores, but not the golf scores.
That was definitely Deacon's assessment when he first did his research on Kress after receiving a direct message via Instagram. In most cases, Kress's scores would have eliminated him from consideration right away, but Deacon was impressed with how well-written Kress's correspondences were. His persistence, also.
"The numbers to play at this level just weren't good enough," Deacon said.
Then came a phone call and recommendation from Jeff Smith, a Las Vegas-based swing coach considered one of the best in the world. Deacon was surprised Kress was one of Smith's clients.
Smith's assessment (paraphrased): "The numbers may not look good right now, but the kid will get straight A's and work harder than any player you've ever had. I know you've heard that before, but trust me."
Deacon went back to Kress with an offer to walk on at UF, but also with a warning that he was going to get his brains beat in daily by teammates, and cautioned that any lapses on the academic end would not be tolerated.
"I basically told him it's going to be the hardest thing you've ever done," Deacon said.
The Kress family (from left): Colette, Matthew, David and David Jr.
Kress was given a month to think about it. He called Deacon back the next day (6 a.m. PT on a Saturday morning) with his answer. He was in.
"People out there thought I was crazy," Kress said. "They were like, 'Gainesville? Do you know how hot and humid it is there? Do you know the players they have there? Do you know the scores you'll have to shoot there? You'll be sitting at home for the first three years and practicing alone before you even get a chance to play.' But it's what I wanted. I was betting on myself."
It was a winning bet. Deacon could not have imagined how much the Gators were destined to cash in.
PROMISE-KEEPER
On Aug. 21, 2021, Deacon and Kress met in person for the first time in the parking lot at Mark Bostick Golf Course. The infamous Ocala tee shot came eight days later.
As far as Kress's overall drive (the one down life's path, not a fairway), it was dead-solid-perfect from the start. Matthew Kress
"I knew i had to make my work ethic evident from the beginning or I was going to be left behind," said Kress, now a redshirt freshman majoring in economics. "We already had a big roster with some great players and I had to add some kind of value; and not just in one area, but in the classroom, in the gym and, eventually, on the course. I never wanted JC thinking back and regretting his decision."
Along with the hard work, however, there needed to be a certain attitude in the face of adversity.
"Matthew took it on the chin early on, but we never talked about him being a walk-on. Why? All that would do is just change his demeanor," Colette Kress said. "There was definitely an awakening moment where it hit him, how hard it was going to be, but that just brought out his inner strength. When Matthew has something on his mind, something he has to do, he's going to get it done. It's funny. I think back to the beginning; I didn't know a lot about golf, but I knew Matthew."
His 2021-22 freshman season red-shirting included Academic All-SEC honors, but was mostly about development and growth. Physically, Kress got stronger and made huge gains in the weight room.
* From three chin-ups to 15. * From 155 pounds to 235 on the bench press. * From 145 pounds to 305 on his back squat.
"He came in for extra lifts every single day outside of the team lifts — and still does," UF strength/conditioning coach Markus Fuerst said. "He has the best work ethic and discipline I've ever seen."
Those traits extended to the range, as well.
Matthew Kress went unbeaten in his three SEC Championship match-play rounds.
"He practices like a PGA Tour player back there," Castillo said. "That's what I think helps him keep calm on the golf course. He's done all he can do. He's put in the hours, so it's become all about being confident over every shot."
Last fall, he qualified for his first event, the Fighting Irish Classic, where he played as an individual, shot an impressive 6-under and placed 26th. In February, Kress cracked the team lineup for the first time, doing so for the Gators Invitational, though he didn't play particularly well. It cost him, at least temporarily.
When the team got on a plane to Las Vegas for its next tournament, Kress wasn't on it.
"There was no complaining. No 'poor me.' No 'coach sucks and doesn't like me.' Nothing like that," Deacon said. "He was going to make me play him. That's the chip on his shoulder that defines him. A lot of people his whole life have told him he's not good enough, including me. Well, I think I may have created a monster."
In a good way for the Gators, of course. Back in the lineup, Kress shot two rounds of 3-under 69 in the N.I.T at Tucson, Ariz., where he tied for 20th individually. At the Augusta (Ga.) Haskins Award Invitational he shot 1-under for the tournament, tied for 23rd and helped UF to its fifth team event title of the season.
But the SEC Championships were a different animal. Kress bounced back from a first-round 74 to shoot a career-best 67, followed by a 69 in Round 3 — finishing tied for 19th individually in stroke play — as the Gators qualified for the match-play championship format, starting with the quarterfinals against Ole Miss. They beat the Rebels 2&1, but Kress was not at his best and heard about it afterward.
"On the seventh hole, he had 25 feet and just needed to 2-putt for the hole, but got careless and 3-putted — and I ripped his ass," Deacon said. "I talked to him afterward and told me, 'I know how pissed you were and I'll never do that again.' Every time the stakes were really high and you thought he might break, he went the other way."
Did he ever. In the semifinals, Kress beat his Texas A&M foe 2-up, as the Gators defeated the Aggies 3-2 to reach the championship final against No. 1-ranked Vandy. On the 15th hole, Kress was shaking hands with Matthew Reidel after a 5&4 rout that gave UF an early lead and set in motion the tournament crown that was secured when DuBois knocked in a 15-foot to clinch his match (and the title) on No. 18.
An orange-and-blue hugfest ensued on the green, with Kress in the middle of it. His mother fought back the tears inside her sunglasses.
"You raise your children hoping for a moment like that," Colette Kress said.
