Charlie Kern regains amateur status, and his life
by Logan Groeneveld-Meijer
These days, Charlie Kern can succinctly describe the speed at which his life moves. He admits it’s fast, busy and maybe a little unbalanced, but it has its upsides.
“It’s nice getting paid without having to shoot 65 four days in a row,” says the 32-year-old Kern, who recently regained his amateur status and recalls “going home with zero dollars” after tournament weeks gone by.
Kern is now a project manager for a health and fitness company. He leads a full life. Living in West Seattle hardly a stone’s throw from Alki Beach, Charlie is happily married to the woman he met during his freshman year at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, and has the ever-so-sweet smile of their six-month-old baby boy, Owen, to look forward to at the end of each day.
“He’s such a happy little boy, it’s so fun coming home and seeing that smile,” Kern says of the newfound dad life.
As for golf, its place in Charlie’s world is somewhat of a brick-by-brick rebuilding process. Officially walking away from the pro level in 2021, he has since regained his amateur status. A former multi-sport high school athlete standing at 6’4”, Kern is athletically built and still has the skill and decision-making knowledge to play competitive golf effectively; he placed T2 in the Washington Men’s Amateur in 2025 at Bear Creek Country Club in Woodinville, Wash., and made the cut in the championship again this year at The Home Course in DuPont, Wash.
“The 100,000 hours I spent practicing, I don’t want it to go to waste,” Kern said, referring to the willful preservation of his golf game.
Kern graduated from Mercer Island High School in 2011. He was, in his own words, “obsessed with anything you could do with sports growing up,” and largely used basketball and soccer as outlets for that. He didn’t come from a golfing family – at Duke University, his father played lacrosse and mother played field hockey, and his grandfather played football at Princeton – but when he did pick up a golf club, his athleticism helped him craft a freewheeling swing worthy of All-County honors in each of his four high school years and his team captaincy as a senior. He twice reached the semifinal match of the PNGA Junior Boys’ Amateur Championship, and the quarterfinals in the PNGA Men’s Amateur, and scored three wins on the Florida-based International Junior Golf Tour (IJGT).
The accolades led nicely into Kern playing a perfectly solid four seasons at William & Mary. After graduating in 2015, he won that summer’s Washington Men’s Amateur at Suncadia Resort, after which time he figured the pro game beckoned.
“That was kind of my sign to give it a shot,” said Kern, who soon after moved to South Carolina for that very pursuit.
Running down the dream, the fledgling pro spent the better part of the ensuing five years based out of South Carolina and Texas.
As most who have been in the trenches of chasing tour cards can attest, the lifestyle is far from pillowy. Kern, for instance, had the company of some of his buddies chasing the same goal while on the road, but he was away from his girlfriend (and now wife) that he’d been with throughout college. He couldn’t quite gain PGA Tour Canada status initially and soon debated over whether he wanted to keep his natural swing or find a coach to overhaul it. He chose the latter, which led to about three years trial and error before finally gaining Canadian Tour Status in 2018. Some success followed, but he soon decided to return to the U.S.
Along the way, the payout ranged from welcome riches all the way down to pocket lint, hence his lighthearted comment about returning home empty-handed on occasion. But Kern was always envisioning where he’d want to be by his 30s and concluded he’d prefer not to chase geese in various Q-Schools by that time and beyond. As such, he gave himself until about 2020 to make serious progress or walk away, a deadline understandably bumped slightly further so it’d at least not be cut short because of the pandemic.
“I think I missed it by 3 or 4 shots,” he said, in reference to the margin by which he missed advancing to Korn Ferry Tour Q-School in 2021. “And that was it, but for me, it was helpful to have set that hard deadline. It gave me some time to come to grips with it. I feel like I gave it that final effort and could move on.”
He was happy to return to Seattle after that, where he naturally feels at home with his surroundings. In the years since, he’s become a married man, and his son’s arrival has made things even more happy.
“He takes up full attention the entire day,” he said. “The second he goes to sleep, man, it's like, ‘All right, now we’ve got to do the dishes. We’ve got to do the laundry. We got to clean up this.’ There's never a second to breathe.”
All that considered, he admits he is still crafting what would become an ideal work, life and golf balance, but is fully intent on having the game remain part of his world. He appreciates the far less-pressurized nature of competitive amateur golf, having found out as much during his near-miss at Bear Creek in 2025.
“My identity is not tied up in my golf game anymore,” he explained. “I just have a real appreciation for being outside, being able to compete, playing the game at a high level and appreciating how much better college and junior players are these days.”
Kern also has plenty of buddies tied to golf, too. He became friends with fellow golfer Chris Babcock during his junior days and has also gotten close with perennial state Mid-Am strength, Paul Mitzel.
“It'll be nice to have a group of dudes that we see once a month in a tournament and go head-to-head against each other,” he said. “And can have some good, friendly banter and bring it back to the old days.”
Charlie gained emotional strength during the grinding days, too. He began to feel more thankful for the opportunities he was plainly getting, even if they didn’t result in absolute success. Murphy’s Law was always in effect during those days, and Charlie feels like he can now handle misfortune of any severity.
“I'm a calmer person,” he continued. “I can deal with the canceled flight or unfortunate scenario much better now because golf really forced me to confront that. Just needing to control your emotions out on the course and get kicked in the face and have to get up and keep trying. It really had a profound effect on my mental stability and ability to handle challenges both on the golf course and off.”
In any case, count him in for upcoming applicable WA Golf and PNGA championships, in which he’ll be motivated to attain any level of satisfaction.
“It’s been a while since I've had an eagle award; they're stacking up in my mom's garage in Montana,” he said, referring to crystal prizes given to those who card such a score. “I had one eagle putt at The Home Course this year for like 15 feet and that was all that was on my mind.”