Links Magazine | The Best Of Golf | A Trip of a Lifetime

Joys and difficulties of amateur golf
There have been times when Kuehne has contemplated sending in his check for PGA Tour Q School to test his game against players he used to beat regularly. But amateur golf always seemed to pull him back. It’s not just that as a lifelong student of the game, he has a deep respect for Bobby Jones and other golfers who loved the game but saw it as only one part of a full life.

He also holds a unique perspective into the behind-the-scenes demands of the professional life. Every time he was tempted, he never had to look beyond his own family to see how quickly a beloved game can become a grind.

“Golf is a whole lot more fun when it’s a game and when you don’t beat it and badger it and beat your head against a wall trying to make it work,” says Kelli, who speaks from experience. She made only eight of 19 cuts last year and had to return to the LPGA Tour Qualifying Tournament to earn an exemption for 2008. And due to shoulder injuries, Hank has not made a cut on the PGA Tour since 2006.

By comparison, it is easy to see the appeal of amateur golf. When many of the country’s top amateurs convene for the Southern International Four-Ball at the Fox Club in Palm City, Florida, their level of intensity is at times more that of guys at a charity outing. One contestant even grabs a six-pack at the turn. “Swing oil for my partner,” he explains with a grin. Maybe when you’re paying to play you insist more on having fun.

Still, amateur golf at its highest level is not all six-packs and jokes on the practice green. The competition, especially against young tour pros in training, gets tougher every year. The Players Amateur is an elite tournament held at South Carolina’s Belfair, no pushover. Last year, the winning score for the four-round event was 24 under. Finishing two strokes behind winner Rickie Fowler, a freshman star at Oklahoma State, was Michael Thompson, an Alabama senior who is also playing the Masters.

Then there is the expense. Kuehne estimates it costs about $50,000 a year to be a top amateur golfer—transportation, accommodations, lessons, medical bills. That’s why it stuck in his craw a few years ago when a tour pro he knew began moaning about some petty problem at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. Kuehne, who had just flown home after playing the Coleman Invitational in Florida, exploded.

“That week he’d been given a Palm Pilot and a ThinkPad,” Kuehne recalls. “He was driving a Cadillac Escalade for the week and staying in a house for free. I said, ‘My rental car just cost me $350. If you win, you get a million dollars. What’s so tough about that?’”

But money is the least of what it costs Kuehne to remain an amateur. Between work and tournaments, he has not been able to spend enough time with his family. Last year the Kuehnes moved to a new house in Southlake, west of Dallas. They have an acre on which Will can run around with their five Labrador retrievers.

“My father was there every day when I got home from school at 4 o’clock,” says Trip. “If it was football season, we’d throw the football; if it was basketball, we’d shoot baskets. Or we’d take golf lessons. Whatever we did, he was always there.

“I’ve lived all my dreams of golf. Now it’s time for me to help Dusti and Will live all their dreams.”

Meeting Dusti makes understanding Trip’s decision easier. It’s not just that she’s a tall, pretty, dark-blond former guard at Oklahoma State. (They met when the men’s golf team faced the women’s basketball team on the court in a bragging-rights scrimmage. That was in March. They began dating in April, were engaged in July and married in September.) It’s her unflagging, good-humored support for her husband as she coaches Will’s basketball team and works 10 hours a week as Double Eagle’s CFO. But not only does Dusti hope that Trip will keep playing, she does a good job of making it sound as if he is the one who has had the toughest time.

“He’s sacrificed a lot of things to be there for Will’s sports and other events,” she says. “He’s going 90 miles an hour to get this stuff done. While I’m grateful to have a husband who thinks like that, I don’t think we’ve been slighted in the least.”