After 16 years, Trip Kuehne returns to USGA competition

Trip Kuehne will make his first USGA championship appearance in 16 years at this week’s U.S. Senior Open.

The 51-year-old Kuehne hasn’t played in a USGA championship since winning the 2007 U.S. Mid-Amateur at Bandon Dunes. The following year, after competing in the 2008 Masters, Kuehne retired from competitive golf to focus on his son Will’s football development.

But with Will Kuehne now a senior quarterback at SMU, Trip Kuehne has gotten back into competitive amateur golf the past couple years. He attempted to qualify for the U.S. Senior Open and The Senior Open last summer upon turning 50, but he failed in both attempts. Last month, Kuehne shot 73 at Arcola Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey, to punch his U.S. Senior Open ticket for this week’s championship at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

When he tees it up at 7:31 a.m. local time Thursday alongside Lee James and Iain Pyman, Kuehne will have appeared in nine different USGA championships. He’s the only player who has logged starts in the U.S. Open, U.S. Senior Open, U.S. Amateur, U.S. Mid-Amateur, U.S. Junior Amateur, Walker Cup, World Amateur Team Championship, and the now-defunct U.S. Amateur Public Links and State Team Championship. Kuehne is also part of more USGA history, as he and his younger siblings, brother Hank and sister Kelli, have all won USGA titles, the only sibling trio to do so. Hank Kuehne captured the 1998 U.S. Amateur with Trip as his caddie, and Kelli Kuehne totaled three USGA victories, the 1994 U.S. Girls’ Junior followed by back-to-back U.S. Women’s Amateur victories, in 1995 and 1996.

Trip Kuehne, a three-time Walker Cupper, is perhaps most famous for his runner-up finish at the 1994 U.S. Amateur at TPC Sawgrass, where he led by as much as 6 up during the first 18 holes of the championship match before an 18-year-old incoming Stanford freshman rallied back from 5 down with 12 holes to play to beat Kuehne, 2 up.

That teenager was Tiger Woods.

Woods, of course, has gone on to win 15 major championship titles.

Kuehne has remained amateur, and after a break from the sport to focus on being a dad and his investment management company, he’s ready to revive his competitiveness. 

“There’s a little bit of scared to death,” Kuehne told the USGA’s David Shefter prior to this week’s event. “It would be really cool to be low am in the U.S. Senior Open. If I play really well, who knows what can happen. If I play poorly, my buddies can start at the bottom and work their way up.”