Bert Richey’s primary focus wasn’t necessarily on winning region golf tournaments, but giving his Highlands boys’ golf team more opportunities.
Richey wanted not only his team, but other high school golfers in Northern Kentucky to play closer to home. With some help, Richey was able to accomplish that goal over the last nine seasons. They went from not hosting any tournaments throughout the season and are now up to four for the 2025 high school golf season that gets underway in less than two weeks.
“When I started at Highlands, we didn’t have much money or opportunities in the golf fund,” Richey said. “I wanted to provide them opportunities for all the kids to play in tournaments. There weren’t many tournaments up this way.”
But that torch will need to be carried on by someone else, Richey informing Highlands of his resignation as head boys’ golf coach recently. With his new role as assistant principal at Newport High School, the time constraints wouldn’t allow him to continue.
“The work and dedication Bert put in the golf program shows in the numbers we have today,” Highlands Athletic Director Wes Caldwell said. “We’ve gone from two or three players trying out to over 40. He organizes a great schedule that challenges our golfers and it’s just a reflection of him and how he’s done that with the program. Multiple guys have gone on to play college golf.”
Once more tournaments started coming up this way, it helped open more doors for Highlands and the success started to follow. Richey started his tenure in 2016, by 2024 they had won five of the last six region titles and finished in the top 10 at the state tournament four out of five seasons from 2018-22.
“I was very lucky, had Justin Gabbard, Luke Muller, Joel Craft,” Richey said. “They built the culture and foundation of the program while I was here. They built the culture of the younger kids, the next waves, Hank Shick, Oliver Golden, Nate Surrey. They played with the older group and saw how it was done. Now those three have played with the younger kids and we hope to continue the success that they had.”
Gabbard and Muller went on to play college golf at Xavier and NKU, respectively, later joining as teammates at NKU when Gabbard transferred last year. Craft is a caddie on the Korn Ferry Golf Tour. The next wave of Shick, Golden and Surrey just graduated and on their way to continuing their careers in golf. Shick and Surrey are headed to Transylvania, Golden on a full scholarship to Miami (Ohio) on an Evans Scholarship, a national scholarship that is available to caddies.
The region title run started in 2018 and then won five straight from 2020-24. It accounts for nearly half of the region titles in program history, now up to 13. They finished eighth in the state tournament in 2018, their highest finish in Richey’s tenure came in 2020 when they were sixth. They followed that up with back-to-back ninth place finishes in 2021 and 2022. The past two seasons they missed the cut after the realignment of the state tournament that starts with sectional play in the first round and then the final nine teams advance to the final two rounds in Bowling Green.
“When I took over, there was a lot of individual success, but not a lot of team success,” Richey said. “Individuals were playing in team events, but not our teams. Wanted to change that.”
They’ll host the Bluebird Invitational, Highlands Invitational, OrthoCincy Tournament and St. Elizabeth Tournament this season. That goes a long way financially for a team.
“Hosting tournament and getting those sponsorships allevaites the burden off our end,” Caldwell said. “It helps them get gear, training elements and play-in fees to other tournaments. Bert helped build that up and didn’t really need anything from us.”
Caldwell said a search is on for a new coach, whether it be an interim for this season or a permanent replacement. With the timing of the season coming soon, Caldwell is hopeful things come to fruition rather quickly.
The Bluebirds are in a bit of a transition year with losing three of their top five golfers from last season. Alex Race and James Kuhn as the lone returnees from the top five.
Richey also stated he won’t return as an assistant for the girls’ basketball team coached by his wife, Jaime Walz Richey. He had been on staff for over 10 years.