Mike Kessling. Lance Lucas. Rylan Wotherspoon.
Those are just some of the familiar local names teeing it up at next week’s 84th Northern Kentucky Amateur Championship.
All are former winners at Northern Kentucky’s marquee annual golf event.
“I’m ready to play,” said Lucas, a 62-year-old attorney from Union. “But I’m a work in progress this year. I still enjoy the competition whether I’m playing well or not.”
The three-day Northern Kentucky Amateur begins Monday May 20 at Highland Country Club in Fort Thomas. Monday tee times begin at 7:30 a.m. The event runs through Wednesday.
The field splits into four divisions: Championship, Senior Men’s, Women’s and
Senior Women’s. Format for the Championship and Women’s Division is 54-hole individual stroke play. The Senior Divisions are 36-hole individual stroke play. There is a cut after 36 holes in the Championship Division. The lowest 30 scorers plus ties make the final-day cut.
Players take on 18 holes each of the three days with the exception of seniors. They play 18 holes each of the first two days. In the event of a divisional tie, a sudden-death playoff determines a sole division winner.
Defending men’s champion Adam Horn, a Wright State golfer, is back seeking a second straight crown.
University of Dayton golfer Megan Yoder returns to defend her Women’s Division championship. She tees off Monday at 7:30 a.m. with future UD teammate Riley Johnson.
Jim Sweeney, a former University of New Mexico golfer, is the defending Northern Kentucky Senior Men’s champ.
The Senior Women’s event is new with four competitors in its debut. They include Carolyn Mindel, a multiple Cincinnati Metropolitan Women’s Senior runner-up and one-time champion.
“We added the senior ladies for the first time,” tournament director Jared Riesenberg said. “We see that as a big push forward as we grow the ladies game.”
HOME COURSE ADVANTAGE
Highland, a 109-year-old country club, is home to a par-70 golf course featuring rolling hills and tricky blind spots. It plays 6,190 yards from the long tees. Kessling knows the course. He won the Northern Kentucky Amateur in 2015 at Highland.
Wotherspoon, a Cincinnati Bearcats golfer who won the state tournament at Cooper High School, won the Amateur in 2022. He and Kessling are seeking second Northern Kentucky crowns. Dhaivat Pandya, who golfed collegiately at three stops including Kentucky and won the Northern Kentucky Amateur in 2019, also returns.
Kessling, a Greater Cincinnati Golf Association board member, won the Northern Kentucky Amateur eight years after graduating from Northern Kentucky. Highland is the longtime home course for the Highlands High School graduate. He’s a three-time Highland club champion.
Kessling isn’t the only participant with extensive course knowledge. Former Bluebirds Luke Muller (NKU), Justin Gabbard (Xavier) and current Bluebird Hank Shick also know the course quite well. Former Bluebird Joel Craft and multiple Highland club champion Marty Arnzen know the course intimately. Craft lives there. Arnzen, a Fort Thomas resident, oversees the Four Seasons Golf Club & Driving Range in Cincinnati.
Muller is an inspiring figure. He is a remarkable athlete despite a diagnosis of lymphoma when he was four years old. He wound up being a two-sport star in golf and basketball at Highlands. Muller recently completed his junior season at NKU. He was the top finisher for the Norse at the Horizon League tournament in April. He carded a final-round score of 4-over-par 76 for a three-round total of 6-over, good for 12th.
“I’m actually playing really well right now,” Muller said. “I medaled earlier this month at the Kentucky Amateur qualifier with a 4-under 68, the only score under par.”
Muller says it pays to have course knowledge at the Northern Kentucky Amateur this year at Highland.
“It’s really hilly with those blind spots,” Muller said. “It’s kind of short which is a scoring opportunity. If you don’t know where to place the ball though, it makes it harder.”
Muller first played Highland when he was 7 years old.
“My parents are members. I’ve grown up almost my whole life on the course,” he said. “That’s nothing though. Joel Craft’s family lives in the residential part on No. 8 so he really knows the course.”
SENIOR MEN’S
Lucas, a three-time Northern Kentucky Amateur champion in 1999, 2003 and 2004, is looking for his first Senior Division title. He knows the Highland course as well though it’s been a while since he played there.
“I finally succumbed to the realization I’m too old to compete with college kids,” said Lucas. “The senior division is very competitive. I know a lot of those guys: Ed Steiber, Tim Sorrows, Jim Sweeney and all of them.”
Sweeney won last year’s Northern Kentucky Senior Men’s crown at Triple Crown Country Club in Union. He held off second-place Sorrows by two shots. Steiber finished in a four-way tie for third.
Lucas is a 1980 Boone County graduate and 1984 grad from the University of Kentucky. He carries a 2-handicap. He won the 2018 Kentucky Amateur. Lucas hasn’t been golfing as much as he’d like after suffering a wrist injury in 2022. He developed some pain in an arthritic hip last year. He’ll eventually require hip replacement surgery. Until then, Lucas is ready to golf, when the hip cooperates.
“I recently attempted to qualify for the Kentucky State Amateur at Traditions where I finished second in 2004,” Lucas said. “I didn’t qualify but I think I’m going to play in a second-chance qualifier at the end of the month. My last event was a two-man best ball with my partner Jeff Floyd.”
FUN FACTS
Ellis Frakes was the first men’s champion in 1940. John Meyers has the most crowns with five, the last coming in 1959. Charlie Nieman won four titles over a 27-year span. Bruce Oldendick won the Northern Kentucky Amateur a record three years in a row from 1984-86.
One of the youngest winners came just last year. Adam Horn won ahead of his sophomore season at Wright State. The 2022 Milford High School graduate was the fifth straight champion hailing from the college ranks. Bill Williamson was the last non-collegiate winner in 2018.
Tournament winners have come from the high school ranks. Austin Squires is the youngest winner. He was a 16-year-old high school student at Ryle when he won in 2013 before eventually golfing collegiately at Cincinnati.
The tournament has become a very young man’s game. Among the final 30 that made last year’s cut, 24 players were age 22 and younger. That included 13 teenagers and 11 players age 20-22. There were just six golfers older than 23 in the championship round. One was 24 years old. Four were in their 30s and one was in his 40s.
The average age of last year’s final 30 qualifiers was 22.3. That made them one of the youngest final-day groups in tournament history.