Trip Kuehne

Ernest W. "Trip" Kuehne III (born June 20, 1972) is an American amateur golfer. He is most remembered for his defeat at the hands of Tiger Woods in the 1994 U.S. Amateur, and his subsequent refusal to turn professional in favor of a successful amateur career.

Kuehne was born in Dallas, Texas. As a pupil at Highland Park High School in Dallas, he was coached by Hank Haney, who later gained renown as Tiger Woods' swing coach after Woods and Butch Harmon split in 2002. Under Haney's tutelage he won back-to-back Texas high school golf championships, an achievement shared with Justin Leonard, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite.

At college, he enrolled at Arizona State University, where he was the roommate of Phil Mickelson. He then transferred to Oklahoma State University, where he was All-American from 1994 to 1996 and won the 1995 Ben Hogan Award. But following his defeat at the 1994 U.S. Amateur, Kuehne found he was unwilling to make the sacrifices demanded in a professional golfer's life, and concentrated instead on a career in finance after graduating with an MBA in 1997.

In 1994, Kuehne reached the final of the U.S. Amateur at the TPC at Sawgrass, where his opponent was a heavily hyped eighteen-year-old Tiger Woods. After shooting 66 in the morning round, Kuehne had a six-hole advantage, and was five up with twelve holes remaining. Woods then staged the greatest turnaround in the tournament's 94-year history, winning five of the next ten holes before sinking a fifteen-foot putt on the seventeenth to win the event in what was described as "one of golf's great performances". The defeat caused Kuehne to question his own commitment to the sport and whether he really was good enough to compete. He has since said that he views the match a "blessing in disguise," although he says that he still will not watch footage of the match.

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