JUNO BEACH, FLORIDA | After taking a serious look at the scoreboard, Trip Kuehne gathered his thoughts and came to terms with his tie-for-13th finish Sunday in the Coleman Invitational at Seminole Golf Club.
Throughout the week, nearly every one of his competitors had greeted him with some variation of the same sentiment: “It’s great to see you out here again.”
“Out here” meant Seminole, a course Kuehne calls his favorite in the world. It also meant returning to the Coleman, an event he won in 2003 and 2004. On top of all of that, everyone was just excited to see him competing as an amateur once again. It had been, according to Kuehne, eight years since his last official competitive individual amateur tournament, at the 2014 Coleman. Before that, Kuehne made headlines calling the 2008 Masters an unofficial retirement from amateur golf and logged no more than roughly 100 recreational rounds of golf – and rare one-off competitive appearances – for the ensuing decade-plus.
Suffice to say, it’s been a while since the golf nerves have been flowing.
“Who knows where this new journey will end,” Kuehne told Global Golf Post. “This is a demanding course where you have to think your way around, and I made some bad mistakes. But that comes with not playing, which is why I was here.”
Most will remember the story of Ernest W. Kuehne III, known as “Trip,” a terrific junior player who started his college career at Arizona State as the roommate of Phil Mickelson before transferring to Oklahoma State, where he was a three-time All-American and the 1995 Ben Hogan Award winner. He famously fell to Tiger Woods in the 1994 U.S. Amateur at TPC Sawgrass, losing a 5-up lead with 12 holes remaining. Kuehne still avoids looking at replays of that falter.
Coming from a family in which his sister, Kelli (1995, 1996 U.S. Women’s Amateur), and brother, Hank (1998 U.S. Amateur), both enjoyed significant amateur success and turned professional, Kuehne was expected to follow the same path.
However, he decided to remain an amateur and embark on a financial career, starting his own hedge-fund company, Double Eagle Capital, in his hometown of Dallas. Kuehne has long called his U.S. Amateur defeat a “blessing in disguise” because it meant there was significantly less pressure and financial incentive to turn professional, a route he had little interest in pursuing. It’s believed that Kuehne is the only first-, second- or third-team All-American in the past three decades who has opted not to turn pro.
In the early and mid-2000s, Kuehne devoted himself heavily to the amateur game and reached No. 3 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. He made a U.S. Walker Cup team for the second and third times, in 2003 and 2007, qualified for three U.S. Opens during that era and won the 2007 U.S. Mid-Am to earn an invitation back to the Masters 13 years after his first time playing the tournament.
But Kuehne left that rigorous amateur schedule behind in 2008, citing that he wanted to be closer to his then-7-year-old son, Will. For the most part, we haven’t seen Kuehne since then.
So, what is bringing him back this time?
“If I don’t make the U.S. Senior Open, I’ll play in the Thomas out at L.A. Country Club. And then I will play in a big pro-am in Ireland and try to qualify for the Senior British Open. It’s a pretty big schedule, and it will be worth it if I can pull off a couple of those majors.”
trip kuehne
“I’ll be 50 in June and I’m going to try to qualify for the U.S. Senior Open on May the 9th,” Kuehne said with a look of determination. “Now that my son is 22, he’s playing college football at SMU and he’s been living his dream and graduated college, and I’ve got to be a part of that. For me, I miss the game, I miss my friends and I miss competing.”
Kuehne opened with a 1-under 71 at the Coleman and earned a spot in the final group during Friday’s second round. He struggled to a 79 that day but still played in the third-to-last threesome for the final round.
“I was nervous teeing off the second day,” Kuehne said. “That tells me it meant something to me. I was glad to be here, and what a special place to start.”
Where this will all lead, Kuehne isn’t sure. He said he is four weeks into a six-week training program to get ready for his U.S. Senior Open qualifier, and his ballstriking remains the strongest part of his game. He turns 50 on June 20, three days before the U.S. Senior Open starts.
He won’t play competitive golf in the fall as he intends to watch Will’s final college football season. Until then, Kuehne hopes his game can prove to be formidable.
“I have some lofty ambitions,” Kuehne said. “If I don’t make the U.S. Senior Open, I’ll play in the Thomas out at L.A. Country Club. And then I will play in a big pro-am in Ireland and try to qualify for the Senior British Open. It’s a pretty big schedule, and it will be worth it if I can pull off a couple of those majors.”
Kuehne said he hadn’t played much golf at all in the 2010s, but he got back into the game when COVID-19 hit. Once he built some momentum, he realized there were a few more goals he wanted to hit in the amateur game.
“If I can qualify for the Four-Ball, the U.S. Senior Open and the U.S. Senior Amateur, I will have played every single championship the USGA has ever offered to a male,” Kuehne said. “And some of those tournaments, like the State Team Championship and the Public Links, don’t even exist anymore.”
When asked to describe his amateur journey – one that certainly has come in waves over the years – Kuehne said he harbors no regrets about the unlikely path he has taken.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” Kuehne said. “I got to be very greedy the first seven years of my son’s life, getting to follow my dream. And then I gave up this great game for him, and I would do it all over again if I could.”
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